Making Great Conversationalists: Chapter Five

How many types of bad speech did you grow up with?  My husband and I brainstormed and we grew up with four different types of bad speech - swearing, being exceptionally crass (e.g. "potty mouth) lying and being hurtful to others.  As an adult, I think the list still stands.   By using the Bible very literally Steven and Teri Maxwell have found six separate ways that words can be harmful.  These six themes make up the beginning of the sixth chapter of "Making Great Conversationalists". 

The first theme is "idle words".  This theme was retrieved from the 36th verse in Matthew 12 about people being held to account by their idle words.  Looking at the entire chapter, Jesus has been irritated by some local Pharisees who have been nitpicking very action he's done.  Matthew 12:36 is the culmination of Jesus telling them off and to stop bother him.  The Maxwells use the King James Version and don't believe in crazy liberal ideas like using the context of a verse...so they struggle deeply to create an entire paragraph about idle words.   The Maxwells steal a definition of "idle" from Strong's Greek and Hebrew Dictionaries, make a few vague threats about how Jesus will punish people for idle words...and that's it.

The next theme is "foolish words" - based on the KJV translation of Ephesians 5:3-4.   The verse itself is clearly letting Christians know that they shouldn't join in existing pagan rituals involving drunkenness or sex.   I prefer the New Revised Standard Version that changes the sentence structure to "obscene, foolish and vulgar talk" instead of the "neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting" of the King James.  When I think of obscene, foolish, vulgar talk, I think of a rowdy party involving immature people imbibing lots and lots of alcohol.   The Maxwells, on the other hand, think of this:

In our family, we still occasionally talk about the foolishness of our children's Grandpa and Benny stories. They went through a phase of making up stories and recording them. The theme was a fictional Grandpa and Benny. The stories were total folly and foolishness. We didn't know enough in our parenting at that point to eliminate the foolishness and to direct your children to edification. Those stories have provided us with a good example of foolish talking and children. (pg. 77)

From that quick synopsis, I hear a lot of good practices for education of kids.  Grandpa and Benny stories required characterization, development of plot and anticipating the desires of the audience who will hear the story.  If they were recording the stories, they were either taking notes, writing a script, memorizing the story or improvising the story during the recording - all of which are excellent literary skills!  This is a great exercise for kids - not a descent into sinfulness.   

I feel awful for the younger Maxwell kids - Joseph, John, Anna, Jesse and Mary.  The lives of the older three kids were restricted over time but at least Nathan, Christopher and Sarah experienced some of the simple, innocent and carefree joys of childhood.  They played team sports, created goofy stories and read books.  The younger kids never had those options and that's so very sad.

In addition to losing those joys, the younger kids have apparently had "joking" taken away from them.  Now, the book conflates the term joking with using sarcasm or passive-aggressive humor as a form of discipline for children.   Using pointed humor in lieu of constructive criticism is a terrible idea - and is modeling poor responses to a kid.    There is an entire world of humor outside of pointed jabs, though.   I've enjoyed a good pun, situational humor or well-timed spit take for decades.  Personally, I have a very dry sense of humor that works well with teenagers once they get used to me as a straight guy.  For example, I had an entire monologue worked out in which I explained that a certain stuffed virus was given to me by my husband a few years ago.  I really like it because red is my favorite color and the virus fit well with the decorations we had up for Valentine's Day.  Now, the virus is out of scale for the bacteria near it - but the virus is the Epstein-Barr virus that causes mononucleosis which some people call "the kissing disease".  Now, most of my students' eyes had glazed over at that point - but there was always one kid who would sputter at that point and say "Your husband gave you the Kissing Disease for Valentine's Day?!?!"  I'd beam and say, "Of course!  He's a romantic!" 

*mimics a rim shot*  

As corny as my jokes are, I cannot believe that God dislikes me bonding with students over quirky jokes about science.

The next theme is that people shouldn't talk too much.   Even the Maxwells admit that there's no Bible verse that forbids being a chatterbox - but that doesn't stop Steven Maxwell from letting people know that their kids should be quiet and listen to him.  Also - Maxwell doesn't like it when his kids know more about a subject that he does ...I mean... act as experts in an area they know nothing about - but there's no Biblical support for requiring everyone to kowtow to Steven Maxwell, either.

The next chunk discusses "wrong words" which Maxwell defines as flattery.   He spends over two pages on how evil flattery is which is odd to me.  Flattery isn't really a major problem for small children or even most kids who are under junior high age; using flattery is a fairly high-level technique for winning someone over to your point of view.   Maybe other kids developed this skill long before I did - but I doubt I would have recognized obvious flattery between two other people let alone tried it myself before I was 11 or 12.   Plus, I've always though flattery was a cheap trick for people who weren't persuasive enough to convince people of their point of view so that made it feel slimy to me.    Apparently, though, the Maxwell kids picked up the skill somewhere:

As specific situations arise, we think you will find teachable moments to help you define and explain to your children the difference between flattery and praise.

For example, John notices that Anna is playing with his favorite toy. He walks over to her and says, "Anna, I love how you play with your doll Jennifer. You look like the perfect, happy mommy when you were holding your dolly."

" Really?" Anna replies as she puts down the toy to go find her Jennifer doll.

Obviously, John was not sincere and its complement of his sister. It was flattery. He had an agenda and figured out a way to accomplish his goal. How much better it would have been for John to ask and a directly for permission to play with a toy and pay its complement another time, when Anna was playing with her doll. Then it would have been sincere praise. (pgs. 81-82)

I believe this story snippet happened - but, man-o-live, this family is weird! 

I have an identical twin sister.  This means I have a same age sibling that I could theoretically attempt Machiavellian shit like this on - but I never tried to trick my twin out of a toy through flattery for two reasons.  First, my parents don't flatter people.  My teachers didn't flatter people.  My friends didn't flatter people - nor did their parents.  Because of that, it never occured to me to try it on my sister.  Second, she was WAY too savvy to fall for that shit.   She would have collected the toy she was playing with and carried over to her doll to play with both if I tried it.

I can't figure out an age for John - who is two years older than Anna - that doesn't make the story even more bizarre.  If John was 4 which is old enough want to get a toy through subterfuge - Anna was two - which feels young to care about how she looks with her dolly.  If Anna was 6, she's old enough to be a bit gullible still and young enough to play with dolls a lot - but that makes John a disturbingly calculating eight-year-old.  If John is 12, that level of planning feels more natural - but that makes Anna frighteningly gullible for a ten-year old.   

Most surreal of all is the fact that telling Anna she looks like a happy adult mommy when she holds her baby doll is enough to send her off after her doll.   I had plenty of dolls that I loved on and took care of - but never because someone told me I looked like a mommy.   In my life as a preschooler and elementary school kid, I assumed that my siblings, my cousins and my friends would all grow up, get jobs, get married and have babies.  Sometimes we played house and other times we played school or superheros or animal tamers or unicorns.  We had so many options of adult lives that another kid saying "you look like a teacher when you wear your dress-up clothes" would be greeted by a blank stare followed by "Huh?"  rather than running off to play school.

The next bit in this chapter that keeps dragging on is the fact that we have to teach our kids not to use words that hurt others.   Duly noted and it didn't take me four paragraphs to explain that tidbit to readers.

Avoiding hurtful words took less than a page.  Running away from other people's words that might shake your worldview takes up a page and a half including this gem:

We also want to educate our children by providing biblical cautions regarding the words others will speak to them. There are times when it is not appropriate for them to remain in the conversation. Recently Teri was talking to a woman who told her she had just read the history concerning a wicked profession. Teri did not want the conversation to continue so she quickly changed the subject. (pg. 83)

I really want to know what book this woman had just read.  Based on two minutes on Google assuming that the woman read a newly published book in 2013  gave a great list of books on prostitution, the history of birth control and being a drug-runner.  The problem is that I can think of scads of books that would terrify the Maxwells that were published prior to 2013.   "The Poisoner's Handbook" by Deborah Blum in 2010 is a favorite read of mine; I'm sure the title alone would terrify any Maxwell.  The similarly terrifyingly titled "Sex, Bombs and Burgers: How War, Pornography and Fast Food Have Shaped Modern Technology" by Peter Nowak was published in 2011 so that's a possibility.  I read this section to my husband and he thinks the book was either Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter"  or C.S Lewis' "The Magician's Nephew".     The sad bit is that this evil profession could also be a memoir of a public school teacher, a member of any non-Christian religion, or any woman who works outside the home because the Maxwells are that crazy.  (Feel free to add any personal ideas on books you know of thought of in the comments!)

Long-time readers know that I have a personal antipathy bordering on rage directed at people who use works that help disadvantaged people as a form personal therapy.  My general theme of digression on this point is the disturbingly common memoir written by an insanely privileged young white person who feels lost after earning a college degree in any subject besides teaching and decides that they wanna give teaching a shot.  The person joins Teach for America - or something like - receives a few weeks of "intensive" training and is dumped in an urban school with massive poverty, a fractured community, limited English speakers and preferably gang-warfare.  After bumbling their way through two to three years of marginally effective teaching, the person escapes back to Harvard, Yale, Columbia etc., and writes an award-winning best-seller about how the kids changed their life. 

No one in the book - especially the author - ever questions why we don't dump these late-blooming, badly-life-planning teacher wannabes in rich suburban districts instead of the inner city.  The author never questions if the kids and community are harmed by the carousel of young yuppies who capitalize on the shock value of the lives of their students.....

And I've digressed again - but I get to blame Steven Maxwell for this one.  The Maxwells brag all_the_time about the fact that they took their sons to minister at a homeless shelter when the boys were young.   In this book, Teri lets a fascinating little tidbit slip:

For example, for many years Steve took the boys to City Union Mission once a month to minister. Those Saturday mission services gave Steve perfect opportunities to discuss what Scripture says about alcohol and drug use, the physical dangers of it, and the destruction that does to families. The children were able to observe first-hand the points Steven would make in his conversations with them. (pgs 84-85)

God, that's gross!  Every time I think I've developed a thick skin for CP/QF crass shit I realize that I can still be shocked and disgusted by them. 

Notice that Maxwell implies that the men at the mission are homeless because of drugs and alcohol with the related implication that addiction is a personal moral failing.   Notice the similar lack of discussion of the effects of war, abuse, and untreated mental illness leading to alcohol as a self-medication.  I doubt Maxwell has ever discussed with another adult the spiral of poverty that is interlinked between unemployment, loss of permanent address and lack of reliable transportation let alone his kids.

For anyone who needs an excuse to be catty about how other people (read: women) dress, Maxwell's got you covered:

What about modesty? Do you want to teach your children to dress modestly and to avoid looking at in modesty? Being in public where there is much immodesty affords the opportunity to discuss modesty with our children. We can tell them why we have modesty standards and why we don't want to dress as the world dresses. These conversations come up naturally as we are exposed to the ungodliness of the world. (pg. 85)

Or....and I know this is out there....you could mind your own damn business.  My parents managed to raise three kids who dressed modestly without ever pointing out immodest dress in others.  Similarly, they've raised three kids who have not murdered anyone without dragging us into a SuperMax and pointing at an inmate while saying "That's a murderer!  Don't be like them!" 

The questions for this section are precious.   If you are looking for a way to make mealtimes with your family fraught with anxiety, sullenness and outbursts of rage, bring these questions up weekly:

1. Do you, your spouse, or any of your children talk too much?

2. Is anyone having trouble with the wrong words described in this chapter? If so, document in your notebook or on your computer who and which category.

• Idle Words
• Foolish talk
• Jesting
• Deceitful words
• Flattering words
• Evil words
• Hurtful words

4. At mealtime or other family discussions, have each person evaluate how he is doing in those areas listed above where you evaluated him. Record their personal evaluations. Encourage those who are not doing so well on how they can do better, and praise those doing well. (pg. 90-91)

Question number one has destroyed plenty of families, friendships and businesses.  Just....don't ask this question unless you can handle the fall-out.    In relation to the Maxwells, well, I suspect Steven Maxwell lets everyone else in the family know that they talk way too much since he's got a lot of control issues.

If your family is speaking to each other at the end of the first question...or when everyone calms down a few days later.... question two is likely to go over wonderfully.  In the hands of a family dictator, everyone else can be charged with something since all of the categories are completely subjective.    For me, the list demonstrates the frightening CP/QF habit of treating a minor issue like "idle" or "foolish" talk the same as a major issue like "evil" or "hurtful" words.  Idle and foolish talk harms no one and doesn't need a remedy.  If you've got a kid who is regularly using "evil and hurtful" words, the family need immediate intervention with a therapist before the kid turns into a psychopath.

Once the hurt feelings and temper tantrums caused by the second question subside, it's time to critique the individual progress of each person in front of the group.   After all, that's a great way to bond people tightly to your personal cult.   The trick is to alternate the love-bombing of children with the detailed tearing apart of their failures.    Once you find the right ratio - and it varies a bit from person-to-person - make sure you take notes of whether last week was a "good" or "bad" week for each person.  Remember the shock value is most effective if there is no pattern of how children's actual behavior affects their evaluation in front of the family.    Turning certain kids into continual scapegoats is tempting - after all, some kids never get with your program - but those kids are much more likely to escape the family as adults. 

 Wait....what do you mean a family isn't a cult?  Pshaw!  A good CP/QF family is indistinguishable from a cult.

*shudders* 
I see why C.S. Lewis never wrote a sequel to "The Screwtape Letters"; I can only put myself in the mind of a narcissist for a few minutes before I feel sick.

Chapter Six begins with an ideal fever-dream of a conversation that lets us learn way more about the Maxwell Family priorities than anyone should know......