Making Great Conversationalists: Chapter 11 - Part One

I apologize for the sporadic posting recently.   Life is good - and rather busy right now.   Because of the severe teacher shortage in my state, I've been subbing 4 days a week on top of multiple-medical appointments Tuesday with my son. 

Honestly, the added income has been nice. I know in CP/QF land the fact that I'm working outside of the house while my husband looks for more steady employment is supposed to end in affairs, divorce, wayward children and the complete collapse of Western Civilization - but this seems to be a tenable and fairly pleasant situation for us.   My husband misses having a consistent job - but I think he'll be settled into a new industry pretty soon.  I find working out of the house to be invigorating and allows me to enjoy the time I spend with my son more.  My husband is really good with our son - and he and Spawn are getting even closer as my husband is the primary caregiver more of the time than I am.

 My son is doing well across the board. Weekly PT has greatly increased his torso strength and I suspect he'll be walking independently in 3-6 months. His current goal is to get his physical therapist to admit that she's really a demon sent to torment him - which is deeply ironic since she'd go to the gates of Hell and back for him.  Toddlers may not be the best at judging people.   ( :-P )   He'll be having eye surgery in early December.  Patching and glasses have corrected his lazy eye a bit - but not enough, so his opthamologist will be performing outpatient eye surgery to loosen a muscle in each eye to correct his vision.   I'm amazed what a difference nearly 2 years makes; if he had needed surgery when he was tiny, I would have been a nervous wreck.  As the mother of a robust, thriving toddler, my main concern is that applying "eye ointment" for a week after the surgery sounds....gooey.  (I think my actual words were "Man, that's a skill I was hoping to wait for the next kid for.")

And then our house was hit by the plague.  There is some evil, evil cold going around that hit my husband hard and had me laid up for the better part of a week.  The little guy, however, seems to be getting over his bout with it in good time so we are very, very grateful for that.

And then I realized that I managed to erase the few thousand words of transcription I had done for the blog before the plague hit.   Turns out that while my transcription software is good there is no software good enough to handle Michigander accent complicated by stuffed-up nose.   Today is the first day my transcription equipment was reasonably accurate so I can start blogging again!  Hurray!

More good news: The end of this book rapidly approaches!

Chapter 11 of Steven and Teri Maxwell's work "Making Great Conversationalists" has a title of some kind - but it should be titled "How to Lose Friends and Isolate Yourself through Evangelizing Badly".   Here's the very beginning of the chapter where little Thomas approaches his grandmother with CP/QF created fear:

"Why, Thomas, you are way too young to be worried about anything. What is bothering you?" Grandma asks.

"I have been thinking about how Jesus saved me last month. I was so excited when I prayed and asked Jesus forgiveness and accepted him as my savior. I have Jesus living in my heart now. I haven't heard you talk about Jesus saving you, though. I am worried that you don't have Jesus as your savior and that you won't go to heaven when you die but will go to hell! Jesus died on the cross for our sins. I love you so much, and it scares me to think of you not being in heaven with daddy, mommy, Christie, and me. Grandma, are you saved?" (pg. 177)

Thomas should be doing normal little kid things like convincing Grandma that an extra chocolate chip cookie is critical for his optimal growth or trying to pet Grandma's ancient, ornery cat.   Being terrified that Grandma isn't going to be in heaven when she dies isn't normal.  It's certainly not healthy for Thomas.

This kind of fear-mongering-meets-childish-pleas-for-others-salvation places the adult in a super-uncomfortable situation.  What is Grandma supposed to do?  If Thomas was an adult, I'd pull out the Bible and read through Matthew 25:31-46 which is the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats.  Once we've read that, I'd point out that on Judgement Day God seems to put no stock in how often a person talked about having Jesus in their heart but relied on whether they helped other people.  Because of that, I don't talk much about having Jesus in my heart but instead work on helping others.   Thomas, though, is a kid.  Am I supposed to tell him that his parents have mangled the Gospels beyond all understanding and are using him as a form of emotional manipulation? Am I supposed to flip the emotional manipulation around and ask him how he feels about the fact that I doubt his Mommy and Daddy are going to heaven - but there might be time to save Thomas and Christie if they get to work now?    See, I feel queasy and slimy at the idea of doing that - but the Maxwells encourage their followers to do the same things with their children.

I wonder how much of the "success" of cold-calling evangelical techniques is due to the fact that most people are far too polite to tell their neighbors or random strangers that their sudden impulse to "share the Gospel" is as obnoxious as if I tried to convince the Maxwells that they need to start watching Star Trek - right now!

 Here's a great example of why neighbors in Maxwell-land learn that no good deed goes unpunished:

When John was 14, we had a neighbor who was unsaved. The neighbor was retired school teacher who asked John to help him troubleshoot a problem with his lawn mower. While they were working, they talked. John was able to lead the discussion to spiritual things and eventually present the whole plan of Salvation. The neighbor rejected what John told him, preferring to remain agnostic, but he John knows he did with the Lord wanted him to do. (pg. 178)

The Maxwells are so oblivious to other people that it makes my eyes water.

Why did the retired school teacher ask John to troubleshoot a problem on his lawnmower? 

Teachers know people in the community and finding someone to fix a lawnmower is not hard so if the retired schoolteacher asked John to help him, we can safely assume there is a better reason than that the best choice was the local 14-year old.

 Most, if not all, of the Maxwell boys had lawn mowing businesses during their teenage-years; the Maxwells include daily schedules for Joseph and John with "mowing" time in "Managers of the Homes" and "Managers of their School".   Asking the neighbor's teenage kid to "help" you fix an issue you are pretty sure you know how to fix on a lawnmower would be a nice way to give them some more business while showing the kid a new skill.  Plus, teachers like to teach so an afternoon or two with a teenager fixing a mower is likely to be fun for the retired teacher as well.

How do the Maxwells repay him for this kind - and rather sweet - act?  They remind John that the guy is an agnostic and have John try one of the Maxwell traps to convince people that they should be saved. 

Ironically, as a retired teacher, I'm sure the Maxwell's neighbor has been a mark for salvation attempts before.   I had well-meaning students try and save me in alternative-ed so I'm assuming it happened to this guy, too.  Personally, I fell back on a very dry, detailed and dull explanation of the separation of church and state and how I choose to keep my religion (if any) out of the classroom to prevent undue influence on minor students.  The important part is to keep talking about minutia until the teen's eyes glaze over just a bit before changing the subject to the next task at hand.

In the next post, we'll see how the Maxwells think "The Good Person Test" and "Roman's Road" should be used - and yet they have no examples of anyone being converted by either test.

CP/QF Crazy: Follow-up On Family of 9 Living in a Garage

How freaking crazy can you be?  No, seriously. 

Lots of people dream of living a completely debt-free life.  In the absence of being independently wealthy, most people decide to manage debt responsibly by restricting debt to secured debt like loans to purchase a new or used car or a house, debt that raises the income of the person like educational debt and limiting the amount of unsecured debt like credit cards.  On a more personal level, people committed to living debt free chose to delay child-bearing until one or both people are in secure careers and often choose to limit their family size.  Homes are quite expensive and large families cost more money. 

On the other hand, a lot of CP/QF large families live in poverty while idolizing families who live in even more extreme circumstances.   A common lament of huge CP/QF families where the mother is reaching the end of her reproductive years is that domestic foster care and adoption has ridiculous requirements like that prospective adoptive families who will be adopting unrelated children can show income over the federal poverty level for their new family size.   For new readers, the federal poverty income guidelines in the US are agreed to be absurdly low by people who work in poverty prevention.  A good rule of thumb is that most families need at least 200% of the poverty guidelines to live a frugal middle class life - so the US poverty guideline of  $20,730 for a family of three should be closer to $42,000.    To size this up to QF families, Kimberly at Raising Olives used to complain that their family of 12 kids and two adults couldn't adopt domestically because the family lived on less than $72,620 per year. 

Back in 2005, Amy at Raising Arrows wrote a blog post about a family she idolized who had nine kids living in a garage for one year so they could build the home of their dreams.   In 2018, I wrote my response to the major reasons I could think of why living in a garage is probably illegal; my more obvious concerns were a lack of exits, too little area of windows,  too little square footage per person, infestation prevention issues and the fact that the taxable value of the land is affected by having a second dwelling onsite.  It turns out that Amy managed to get a hold of that family and write a follow-up in 2017; I'll refrain from guessing as to why it took 12 years to catch up with them. 

Turns out some of my unspoken assumptions were just plain wrong.  Silly me - I assumed that living in the garage would start when the family had all of the money set aside to build the house so that the time living in the outbuilding would be limited to a single building season.  Oh, boy, was I naive!  FIVE YEARS!  The family lived in a garage for 5 freaking years! 

I'm still shocked and horrified - so I guess I'll start with the size of the garage.  The family says that the garage was 24' by 30' and at least partially built to purpose for living in.  The square footage is 720 square feet.   Now, the 1986 guidelines for safe living spaces stated that the minimum square footage could be calculated by 150 + 100(n-1) so a family of nine would need 150 + 100(8) or 950 square feet minimum.

Now, if I was living in a garage, I would be on like 5 forms of birth control - including "we're not having sex until we get a real house or apartment" followed by 4 other forms.  Apparently, I'm crazy because the family happily admits that two children were conceived and born while living in the garage.  That pushes the minimum square footage to 1150 feet - but I'm more horrified at the idea of adding two newborns sequentially to a garage home.   The family mentions that the time they lived in the garage was extended because of unexpected building costs and high medical bills.  I wonder how much of those medical bills were due to two labor and deliveries; childbirth is expensive even when everything goes perfectly.

In terms of exits, the garage did have two external doors that were not garage doors.  Assuming the drawing provided by the family was reasonably accurate, the garage was not compliant in terms of emergency window egresses from the bedrooms.  Personally, I'd be very worried about exiting from the kids' bedroom in case of a fire.  There was one small window, an internal exit towards the main area of the garage and an external exit across the room where the washer, dryer and hot water heater were located.  If anything happened involving the washer, dryer or hot water heater, the kids' fastest exit would be compromised. 

Speaking of the garage doors, the "front" of the garage included a large standard garage door.  This threw me a bit at first; why would a family waste that much wall space on a garage door when they were making plans like building 10 foot ceilings on the garage to make it a workable future temporary home?  Then I remembered - the local tax authority would notice in real time if a family wanted to build a second home on a plot.  Silly me and my beliefs about obeying civil codes and taxation.

Really, the author of post sums it up better than I can.  The 5+ years of living in the garage are great in hindsight.   Looking back at my life, I have a lot of memories that are far more fun in hindsight than they were at the time.  After all, memories allow me to enjoy the fun, exciting or satisfying bits without reliving the pain, frustration or tedium.  For example, I chaperoned a group of teens on a mission trip to Beaver Island when I was around 26.  I had lots of fun on the trip - but I also broke my tailbone early in the trip, one of the other chaperones was having what I can only describe as an untreated manic episode, and I was going on slightly less than 5 hours of sleep a night for over a week.   My memories are of teaching my small group to pain sets and watching sunsets over the lake - not the pain of hiking miles each day with a light pack with a broken tailbone. 

Be cautious of taking advice from people who enjoyed an experience only in hindsight.

Making Great Conversationalists: Chapter 10 - Part Three

Subbing for a few middle school classrooms last week brought back memories of how new, wonderful and completely exasperating the waves of adolescent emotion are.  Watching and dealing with pre-teens and young teenagers was rather tiring for me - but that's nothing compared to the exhaustion that comes from managing the sudden thirst for independence that hits right around the time that young people first look at another person in their age group and think, "I really want to kiss them!"  One of my strongest memories was of a substitute teacher we often had.  Most of the other students didn't like her because she was rather strict, but I liked her because she generally brought a knitting or crocheting project to keep her hands busy.  In other words, pre-teen Mel saw a kindred spirit.   One of my compatriots asked her if she missed being in junior high.  Without missing a stitch, she laughed and said "Never.  No one could pay me enough to be a junior high school student again. I know well meaning people are always telling you that you have it made - no job, free schooling, no worries - but I found junior high to be one of the most frustrating and least enjoyable experiences of my life.  High school was better.  College was much better - but being an employed adult was far better than any of those times."   Hearing that was such a relief to me!  I wanted to do more, to know more, to be more - but I didn't know if I was ever going to feel less haphazard, lost and angst-ridden.  What if the rest of my life I kept feeling like I did at 11 or 12 or 13 - but picked up more responsibilities?  Would I ever be able to talk to a boy without turning beet-red and alternating between awkward silence and a torrent of words?  Would a boy ever like me?  Would I find a boy that I liked - and who liked me?

Everything felt completely overwhelming at the time - but looking back 25 years later I have to admit that the substitute teacher's statement that junior high sucks was dead-on.  Academics got harder as time went on, but I also became much more skilled in logic, mathematics, critical thinking, research, writing and speaking so the overall process was easier.   Working at a job did bring different demands, but even being a bagger-utility-worker-janitor brought a feeling of satisfaction and spending cash.   As I became more skilled at communicating with boys I was attracted to, I realized in hindsight that I probably could have gone on "dates" - such as they were - with 4-5 of my classmates in junior high if I had recognized the fact they were attracted to me.  The biggest breakthrough I made in my life was realizing that if I avoided romantic relationships to prevent the pain of a broken heart, I'd end up suffering more pain by closing down otherwise healthy, happy relationships.  I'd be paying interest on a debt that never came due.   Equally important was the realization that broken hearts heal.  I've had more crushes than I can remember, more first dates than I can remember easily, and a handful of long-term relationships.  Obviously, all of those except one ended.   Sometimes I was crushed, but the pain does fade over time.

Presumably if you ask Steven and Teri Maxwell or Geoffrey and Victoria Botkin to honestly recount their romantic experiences prior to marrying their spouse, you'd get a story not dissimilar to mine.  Lots of crushes, some dating experience, dating your future spouse and eventually marrying your spouse is a pretty standard trope.   And yet, they state that the dating process has ruined marriages beyond repair.  They've created an alternate, non-standard form of romantic pairing known as "courtship" that is supposed to protect the hearts and bodies of their kids prior to marriage - but the track record on protecting hearts, protecting bodies and finding suitable marriage partners is shaky at best.  The Maxwells have married off four of their sons, leaving one son and three daughters unmarried.  The Botkins have fared worse with three married sons along with two unmarried sons and two unmarried daughters.  Sons have a better chance at marrying for a few reasons.  Males are allowed to earn a living which takes them out of the family enclave into the wider world where they can meet eligible women.  Males are allowed to initiate courtships without the involvement of their families of origin.  The reproductive penalty of age is much weaker for men than women so that a CP/QF man who decides to marry at age 35 could still have a very large family if he marries a woman in her early twenties.  For example, Sarah Maxwell's brother Christopher married a woman nearly 10 years younger than him when he was 32 and they currently have 5 children.   Meanwhile, Sarah is unmarried at 36.

I bring this up because the Maxwells use the end of Chapter 10 to harp on the importance of deciding in advance how unmarried children should deal with conversations with people of the opposite gender.  The Maxwells try to seem impartial, but based on the stories they chose to share, they show a tendency towards preventing communication between girls and boys.  Let's move into the quotes:

We encourage families to discuss and to set guidelines for boy/ girl conversations. Some think nothing of girls initiating conversations with boys or vice versa. Other say that they shouldn't be allowed until the young people are ready for courtship. Some families only want their children involved in conversations with the opposite gender once a courtship is started. (pg. 170)

The first memorable fact in this quote for me was the fact that the guidelines that my husband, myself, and everyone I know from our generation who is happily married was completely skipped over.  My parents didn't worry about me talking to boys.  I could initiate the conversation or the guy could.  They trusted that my crushes of my tween and early teen years wouldn't kill me - and emotional purity wasn't on their radar.  Actually, it was barely on anyone's radar since "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" wasn't written until 1997 when I was a 9th or 10th grader.

The second interesting idea for me was how absolutely silent our junior high years would have been if only guys were allowed to initiate conversations with girls.  Looking back, there were two...perhaps three.... guys in my class of 34 6th graders who might have been brave enough to start a conversation with a girl.  Not letting girls start conversations with boys is crazily archaic - and I'm pretty sure it would make a church youth group an ice-cold war zone with all of the girls staring wistfully at boys who are mostly oblivious to the romantic longings of the boys.  Since the girls can't talk to the boys to realize that the boys are just not that into them yet, the girls would end up jockeying for position with other girls to catch the boy of their dreams.

CP/QF land has a truism - no matter how crazy one idea is, there is someone who holds a more extreme idea that make the first crazy idea seem sane.  Teaching daughters to let guys lead a conversation seems surprisingly sane compared to making them wait to talk to boys until the teens are courtship age....or actively in a courtship.   I'm assuming most families put off courtship until a teen is of marriageable age so I'm thinking there are families that instruct their teenagers to avoid conversations with the opposite sex until age 18-20.  For the Maxwell males, courtship age is based mainly on their ability to own a home outright which means they can't court until they are in their early 20's.   Many people put off dating seriously until at least their early twenties - but I've never met anyone who avoided conversations with the opposite sex before then.  I'm sure people of certain groups who prefer extremely structured arranged or semi-arranged marriages do that, but I've never known someone from one of those groups well. 

Putting off any conversation with the opposite sex until a young adult is in a courtship sounds like a recipe for disaster for fundamentalist Christians.   The leaders creating the courtship models are trying to force the most extreme form of parental involvement available in arranged marriages along with highly chaperoned interactions with the opposite sex without changing the US narrative that people fall in love first and get married second.  Let's write out what that looks like in the ideal outcome: two extremely sheltered young people who have had very little experience outside of their own family system are talking to each other trying to decide if they should get married.  That would be insanely awkward at best - and a total train wreck at worst.

For any poor deluded souls who think like I do, the Maxwells spell out the possible consequences:

Please realize that there can be dangers with boy / girl conversations. While it starts innocently, heart attachments can easily grow. That is a total unknown when of the first conversations occur. Many grieving parents have come to us when a child has become emotionally and then sometimes physically involved. That could have been avoided if the family had boy/girl conversation policies in place and adhered to. (pg. 171)

The Maxwells must have much looser standards for physical intimacy than I do.  I can safely say that I've talked to a few hundred thousand men in my life between school, church and, oh yeah, working as a cashier/bagger/pharmacy clerk/ men's department clerk for eight years.  Of all of those men, I probably went on dates with 15 of them total and have had sex with one of them.   In other words, talking with a guy - even an attractive, funny, smart, kind guy - is not even associated with sexual activity in my life let alone a causal effect. 

The emotional purity component is even stupider.  Why are romantic attachment the only form of relationships that "give pieces of your heart away"?  The only time I've felt like I lost a chunk of my heart is when I had my younger brother die and when my best friend died.   I have fallen deeply in love with men other than my husband and the break-up of those relationships hurt - but even that pain paled in comparison to losing a sibling and a friend who was like a sister to me.   

I love my husband in a way that is similar to and yet completely different than the ways I loved other men.  We had that whole infatuated-walking-on-air-he's-the-bestest-person-ever phase that I've had with other men - but my husband is the only person I've built a life with.   We own a home together.  We've weathered career changes together.  We've cared for elderly relatives together.  We produced an amazing child whom we are raising together.   None of those life-giving activities have been undermined by the fact that we had kissed other people (and each other) before we married. 

Our last vacation together before our son was born was a trip up to Mackinac Island.  We had both been there previously with other people we were dating - and our trip together was phenomenal!  Being up their gave us a chance to share all of our previous memories with each other and create new ones.  Awesome new memories like trying to help a guy in a rented surrey get his understandably confused horse to turn left.  See, the guy was reining his horse in and holding the reins out to the left which made the horse stop while failing to signal the horse to go left.  We explained that he needed to release the reins so the horse could move its head, then gently pull the left rein back so the horse could move her head to the left and her body would follow.   My husband and I started encouraging the horse to move left by talking calmly, but firmly to her like "Hey, now, boss* now.  Let's go left, girlie.  There you go.  Goooood, boss. Gooood, boss" while pointing left.  The horse looked relieved like "Oh, Thank you, Horse God for sending these nice people to help the weird stranger to stop pulling my head back."  The horse was easing into a nice left turn when the driver decided to pull back on the reins again causing the horse to prop to a stop.   We wished him a nice day and wandered off since we only had so many times we were willing to help someone who wasn't listening to directions :-).   

Guess what?  That's a unique memory that I share with my husband that is completely different from my memories of other trips to Mackinac.  Corollary: If I am widowed or divorced someday, I may well remarry.  Visiting Mackinac with my second spouse would be equally awesome because we'd create our own memories separate from our previous relationships. 

I'm so over this EmoPure crap. 

In case there was any question about where the Maxwells fall on the spectrum, they included this lovely guideline from some other family shared with them.

Here's an example one family shared with us on the boundaries they place on the boy / girl conversations for their family. " When we hand out tracts or do any ministry, we always pair the children. Even in business, we try to have Isaac talk with a male customers and Morgan with the female customers. We know there could be danger with lengthy conversations with those of the opposite gender." (pg. 171)

*blinks*

Here's a conversation that's never happened to me in 8 years of customer service:

Me: "Hello!  Did you find everything you needed today?"

Customer: "I sure did!  You are so great!"

Me: "That's great.  Can I interest you in a fountain pop?"

Customer: "I love you so much!  I want to spend my life with you!"

Me: "......so that's a "no" on the pop, I guess."

Customer: "Ha, ha, ha!  No pop - just a lifelong romance with you!"

Me: "Huh.  I could do worse, I guess.  Let's have sex.  I'm scheduled for a break in 20 minutes."

Yeah, that's palpably absurd - but it's the type of situation that the Maxwells and Maxwellite followers imply will happen if Morgan is allowed to give out tracts to men or Isaac answers a woman's questions at his family's business.    I'm starting to believe that the CP/QF folk have much lower boundaries for sexual activity to occur since they live in dread fear that their kids will have sex with random business customers if left to their own devices.

Good news: The end of this book is rapidly approaching!

*I'm really not a horse person, but I'm aware the term "boss" is supposed to be used for cows, not horses.  Since I spend most of my time around cows, "boss" just slipped out.  Ironically, most of the people who staff stables during the busy season on Mackinac Island are ex-Amish or Mennonites who speak Pennsylvania Dutch so the horse visibly relaxed when I said "boss" because the professional teamsters pronounce "horse" as "hoss"....so from the horse's point of view I must know what I was doing.

Making Great Conversationalists: Chapter Ten - Part One

This chapter is worth its weight in comedic gold!  Steven and Teri Maxwell's "Making Great Conversationalists" has plenty of stretching Bible verses to the breaking point along with monotonous stretches of tripe - but the Maxwells are great at trying to put a positive spin on some family stories.   This chapter includes several stories that if the Maxwell parents reflected on their children's gift of conversation...well, this book might never have been written.

Chapter Ten is about "roadblocks" that might occur during teaching conversations or during conversations themselves.  The first category in this chapter is essentially "what should you do if your kid balks at learning to converse with people?"   Perhaps I'm missing something - but isn't a given that kids will whine about anything?  My toddler grumbles about the fact that his parents won't read him "Hop On Pop" for the 59th time today. Yesterday, I had a student complain that the clipart on a worksheet was ugly.  I had a student today complain that they didn't want to go to the gym for a pep-rally; his complaint was something about it being too early in the morning and not caring much about the activity for the day.  Most teachers have to create detailed plans for determining when a window can be opened.  Without one, classes can deadlock between the "I'm too hot" and "I'm freezing" kids.   After eight kids, I'm sure the Maxwells know to expect whining. 

Not only should the Maxwells expect whining - but there is no way that the answers to kids whining about conversational skills should take three pages to work through!  The Maxwells attempt to argue that "I don't know what to say", "I'm a slow thinker", and "I don't have anything interesting to say" are three different situations.  The only reason the divisions makes sense is to take up additional space in the book.   In the wider world, no one would have repeated conversations - or consequences - about a kid who wasn't that into conversations.  Being a quiet kid has its own set of natural consequences.  The consequences are hardly bad - in fact, they work well for kids who are quiet - but unless the kid wants to be more talkative I don't see the point of the Maxwell's ideas of spending time helping a kid pre-plan a conversation or convincing the kid that God will tell them what to say.

After exhausting the topic of whining, the Maxwells jump to the next logical topic: peer dependency.  When I searched "peer dependency" on a whim, I was glad to see that the search results pulled up lots of semi-obscure coding websites instead of the CP/QF belief that people of all ages should want to spend time around people of all ages without any sort of preference for being around people in their own age cohort.   As near as I can tell, this is used primarily as a cudgel to shame preteens and teenagers for wanting to spend time with their friends instead of their siblings and parents.   After some haphazard discussion of brainstorming topics for younger and older audiences with the peer-dependent child, the Maxwells created this surreal gem:

Perhaps that is a self focus that indicates that the child wants to talk to his friends because he is interested in them, they in him, and he likes what they talk about. In that case, you will go back to the reason why conversation is important-- to communicate love. (pg. 162)

*rubs forehead until the strained muscles relax*

Teri and Steven Maxwell graduated from college.

In spite of that, the quote was thought, written, edited, proofread and published.

Let's take this to the natural conclusion in this simulated dialogue between a mother and daughter:

"Lise, I need to talk to you about something I've seen at church.   You primarily spend the time after church with Stephanie, Emily and Maria.  Why do you do that?"

"Well, Steph, Em and Mari are nice.  They ask about how my week has been.  We talk about what we've been doing during homeschooling.  Plus, we're all learning how to cook together and share recipes."

*Mom falls to her knees in anguish and howls*   "Why, God, why?  Why does my daughter spend time with people who care about her and share her interests?  Please help me show her that true love means pushing into conversations with adults and stifling boredom to interact with children at their level."

"I can do that, Mom.... but the kids looked happy playing together and the adults were having an intense conversation that they shooed all of us away from in the first place."

"Oh, Lise, when will you learn? Love means never being happy or content; it's an itchy feeling of isolation and self-repression."

Yup.

After giving that sage advice, the Maxwells transition naturally into the next topic: filler words.  According to the Maxwells, people shouldn't use filler words and the best way to break people of using filler words is to remind them every time the person uses the filler word.   I use a lot of filler words and having people point them out works with a few caveats.  First, only do this with the other person's permission.  Being interrupted every time you say "uh" or "like" is frustrating and irritating even when you've asked people to do it; do it to an unwilling person and you might get hit.   Second, set a time limit for this activity.  Filler words are a minor linguistic quirk or oddity.  People still have the right to communicate even if they do so with a less than perfect gloss.

What follows filler words?  Oh, yes. Anger.   (Let me know if anyone can figure out any sort of patterning in Maxwell topics; my only guess right now is drawing topics randomly.) The Maxwells launch into an amazing story about how well their conversational training worked for Jesse Maxwell when he was a teen:

A few years ago while attending church after a conference weekend, fifteen year old Jesse was talking with a father. The conversation moved to the subject of college, with the father telling Jesse about his son's plan for college. Jesse entered the conversation by asking the man some questions about college and sharing why he was choosing not to go to college.

Suddenly the man became quite emotional and angry with Jesse. Jesse said the man's anger flared when confronted with why Jesse was choosing not to go to college. The logic of Jesse's no college points shared innocently in the spirit of a typical conversation exchange sparked emotion in the dad without warning. Jesse was able to remain calm when confronted with anger.

And talking about the situation afterwards, Jesse said he realize that he wouldn't have given his thoughts on college had he known it was a touchy point for the dad. He said he also gained experience on when to quietly drop off point and when to continue the exchange. (pg. 164-165)

Your kid can be like this too if you follow the Maxwell Plan for Making Great Conversationalists! Yay!

An adult man tells Jesse Maxwell a bit about his son's future plans.  The deliciously naive, completely self-assured and exceptionally sheltered 15-year old decides the best response is to educate this adult man on why his son shouldn't go to college.   Oh, I know, the Maxwells try to spin the story to make it sound like Jesse was just discussing his personal choices - but precious few adult men would be angered by the statement "I don't think I'm going to go to college myself" from a 15-year-old they've just met.

Oh and a few paragraphs after the story, Maxwell inserts the warning that teens shouldn't use absolute terms like "always" and "never" and shouldn't sound like know-it-alls to adults.   Hmmm.....wonder what prompted that bit of advice?

Look, Jesse learned an important life-lesson; people do not appreciate having their choices criticized by an ignorant stranger.  The only sad thing is that he would have learned that long before if his parents hadn't kept their family chronically isolated.

The Maxwells also imply that Jesse was right because he was "logical" while the stranger was "emotional" - but the Maxwells use appeals to emotion all the time!    One common example is the argument that a college education is synonymous with drinking alcohol, premarital sex, and rampant atheism.  Each of these issues is possible on a college campus just as it is possible in the backseat of a car, or the edge of a field, or a back porch.  Conversely, at no point when I was filing the paperwork to finish my college degree did I have to demonstrate that I had gotten drunk, had sex or become an atheist!    Most of the appeals to courtship and stay-at-home daughterhood work along the same lines.  The logic is scant - but following the CP/QF way will lead to happiness while leaving the path will lead to despair.

Jesse's reflection on the whole conversation is meant to seem mature - but it is full of contradictions.  Jesse took a stand about an issue he thought he knew a lot about.  When he received unexpected blowback, his response is that he wouldn't have taken a stand if he knew there would be mildly unpleasant consequences.   Tell me: if Jesse can't handle one man being mad at him when Jesse "educates" him, how on Earth is Jesse going to handle the level of scorn he's going to get from people when Jesse starts telling them how to raise their daughters or become real Christians or convert their families into personal cults?  For all that CP/QF folks rail on about converting the US, they sure raise their children with thin skins and poor ability at reading other people.

The next post fill us in with more Maxwell maxims about shortcoming in conversations.  Until then, may your life be filled with real love and not CP/QF love!

Making Great Conversationalists - Chapter Seven

After two weeks of working outside of the house again (YAY! YAY! YAY!), I can confirm a sneaking suspicion of mine surrounding Steven and Teri Maxwell's book "Making Great Conversationalists".  The Maxwells have created a problem by severely restricting homeschooled children's chances to talk to other people - and are now profiting by selling a book on how to correct the problem they created.  That feels something the horrifyingly dysfunctional Bluth family would pull off - or the craven capitalist Montgomery Burns on the Simpson - rather than something a nominally Christian family would do.   I've been working with kids from age 8-19 from a wide variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, ability levels and English fluency - but all of the kids were capable of starting a conversation without needing extensive teaching.

That's one of the benefits of traditional schooling methods.  Most societies encourage kids and teens to interact and form relational bonds with other kids and teens.  These bonds benefit communities because most teenagers will eventually marry other teenagers and form economic entreprises with other teens.  Peer-to-peer bonds provide a form of insurance against bad events in the future.  For example, women in the Hidsa people formed sororal bonds with girls of a similar age.  If a woman was ill or recovering from childbirth when her garden was supposed to be planted, her sororal sisters would plant the garden for her - just as she would do for them. 

A side-benefit of being expected to spend time among unrelated peers is learning how to talk to other people.   Dumping a bunch of toddlers together means that the toddlers will eventually use words to work out who gets what toy or what game they want to play.  From there, it's just a natural progression of adding new topics while teaching societal expectations.  The first part of Chapter Seven is about teaching "beginning" conversationalists about basic US norms for non-verbal cues during conversations.   Kids are expected to look the person who is speaking in the eye and smile.  I have no problem with those conventions per se - but they are not universal.   I've worked with international students from diverse areas where the convention of looking directly at an authority figure and smiling while they talk is viewed as being disrespectful and rude.   Since the Maxwells are supposed to train their kids to convert people to Christianity all over the world, they probably should introduce the concept of cultural norms early on....

The Maxwells move on to the idea that kids should speak slowly and clearly.  I agree - but again, this is an issue that the Maxwells' obsession with extreme sheltering created.   In a traditional school setting, kids pick up pacing and volume control naturally over time.  When kids speak too fast, their friends can't understand the words and the kid slows down.   Yup, kids occasionally need tweaks, but parents aren't doing all the work of teaching kids to speak more slowly and calmly.  At the end of this section, Teri Maxwell includes an intriguing quote from her mother:

Recently, I (Teri) was talking to my mom and sharing the section with her. Immediately she said, " Please tell your readers to let their children answer when someone is interested in the in their children to ask them a question. So often when I try to talk to a child, his parents will answer for him rather than letting him speak for himself." (pg. 115)

I...have never had that experience.  My general experience with talking with small children is one of two outcomes.   Outcome one is that I ask the kid a question and the kid responds.  Outcome two is that the kid has no response when I ask them the question and after a long-ish pause the parent answers the question.   I've not known many parents who jump in to answer a question before their kid has had a chance to answer. 

There is a tad more ironic possibility.  Steven Maxwell has stated frequently in this book that he dislikes it when his kids act like knowledgeable experts in areas where the other person knows more than the kid does.  Maxwell has created many dialogues in this book that imply that the main purpose of children's conversation is to keep the conversation on topics of interest to their father and listen rapturously as the father holds forth on his personal favorite topics.   Finally, Maxwell seems to live in dread fear of being embarrassed by his kids talking like a normal kid.   With that background, I wonder how often Steven Maxwell answers questions for his kids when asked by his mother-in-law.  Maxwell doesn't strike me as a person who handles a request to change his habit gracefully - so maybe his mother-in-law took a different method of passing on a request.

The worst advice comes in a section about dealing with shyness.   The Maxwells seem to take shyness as a person insult instead of a passing stage that many kids go through - and also age out of.  The first bit from that section is odd, but most likely harmless advice:

This is also an important time to teach your children to rely on the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives. They aren't the ones responsible for coming up with an answer to a question. The Lord will do that for them. (pg. 115)

Mmmm-kay.  That's strange advice.  First, what does it mean when an observant, saved kid has one of those moments when their mind blanks out during an attack of social anxiety?  As a kid, I would have been terrified that the Holy Spirit was mad at me or was somewhere else.   Second, how the hell do all of us unsaved folks manage to talk?  I'm religious - but I'm not saved under the Maxwell/Botkin/CP/QF theory of salvation.  In spite of that, I'm delightfully chatty!  I have a point of personal pride that I can talk to any willing person about a topic of interest to them for as long as they want to talk - but how can I have that skill if I'm unsaved?   Finally, why would the Lord have two or more saved people talk to each other anyways?  That would literally be the Lord holding both sides of the conversation....

The next bit of advice is a quick refresher on how to be a helicopter parent in case any of the readers have forgotten:

You could talk to the adult beforehand, explaining how you are working with your child and what you are trying to teach him. Give me adult two or three questions to ask your child that you will have had your child practice giving answers for. That way your child will have extra confidence because when the question is asked, he will know the answer. (pg.116)

Or....and I'm just spit-balling here....the parent could practice the 3-4 most common topics that adults ask kids they know.   If the nervous kid knows how to answer "How is school going?", "How is (choose an after-school activity) going?",  "Do you have pets?" and a stock response for "Wow! I like your item of clothing!", the kid should be golden for over 90% of conversation starters from adults.  If this is a kid in the real world, adding "What do you like to do/watch on TV/read/favorite movie?" covers 99% of the conversation starters. 

I bring this up repeatedly - but how many of the issues in conversations for excessively sheltered homeschooled kids come from lack of exposure to any activity of wider interest?   When families are prevented from doing sports, theater, dance, watching TV, movies, listening to most music and highly restricted in reading habits, they've reduced their kids down to a handful of topics to talk about.  Since many of these families are also paranoid that the government is going to crack down on homeschooling, I suspect many of the kids have picked up some level of nervousness around talking about school.  By my count, that leaves pets as a safe topic of conversation....

The last quote clarifies that shyness is a sin:

Prepare the children ahead of time for answering questions they are asked. Don't excuse shyness. Don't even use the word! If your child refuses to speak, treated as a discipline issue just as you would treat any other disobedience. Do not discipline in public, however, but keep the discipline for when you are home, whether it is a simple verbal correction or a consequence. If you allow a child to choose not to speak when spoken to, you facilitate that behavior. Their disobedience is a symptom of a heart that isn't willing to listen to you or follow you. (pg.116

To be clear, the Maxwells believe that if parents want their kids to talk in public, the kids should do it - and failure to do so is disobedience which is a sin.   Presumably, the converse is also true - if parents don't want their kids to speak in public, kids who do so are sinning and should be punished. 

The problem with this belief is two-fold. 

First, social anxiety is a real thing.  When I was a kid and a strange adult asked me questions, my mind would go blank and I'd hear a loud buzzing in my ears.  I wanted to respond as smoothly and well as my parents did - but I literally couldn't do it.   My parents were sympathetic; they gave me time to answer and if I couldn't, they answered the question for me.  That took the stress off of me - and generally let me respond to the next question or ask a question of my own once my body settled down a bit.   They also told me to watch how they interacted with other adults and mimic that.  That was a great tip for me; I find practice conversations stilted - but watching my parents let me connect stimuli found in real life.   This is a pretty common story among shy or timid people; you want to be involved - but your body gets in the way. 

Understanding and patience is helpful.  Having parents who both support you - and challenge you within reasonable limits - is helpful, too.  In my case, while my parents knew I struggled at the first exchange with a strange adult, they expected me to be able to greet them with a polite "Hello" and say goodbye as well.  They gave me positive feedback when I joined the conversation.

If my parents had punished me in any way, I believe my social anxiety would have gotten worse over time rather than better.   It was hard enough to push through when I was anxious, but I knew my parents had my back.  If I was anxious and knew I was disappointing my parents and that I would be punished....well, yeah, I'd be even more blank....and probably progress into a crying ball of Mel.  That'd be impressive to the poor adult who asked me how school was going....

The other problem is the Maxwell belief that parents have the unquestioned right to control their children's every action.   That's completely nuts - and totally insane coming from parents of eight children.   My son is a whopping 18 months adjusted and I can't control his every action!  Honestly, I would never try that.  Right now, I demonstrate appropriate social customs like saying "Hi!" "Bye!" and waving at people.  Sometimes my son mimics me by saying "Hi, car!" or "Hi, cat!" and he's just started waving spontaneously when he sees people - but I'd never try and reinforce that through negative consequences.   I let the natural positive consequences happen like when he waves at a cashier the cashier smiles at him and verbally reinforce that behavior by saying "Oh, it's so nice when you wave at people!". 

I want my son to be a functional member of society - but I also want him to be able to follow his gut, too.  That means that he's allowed to have people he likes and dislikes.  That means he can say "no" to a hug from a family member and offer a handshake instead.  That means he can choose not to talk to random strangers - even if doing so would make me proud. 

The rest of the chapter rehashes topics covered previously so I'm going to stop there.   The next chapter is really short.  The Maxwells try to create an "intermediate" level of conversation and fail miserably.  The most memorable bit for me - and presumably you - is the list of questions that kids should be taught to ask each other...and adults.

Making Great Conversationalists: Chapter Six - Part Two

Everyone survived the goofy conversational start to Chapter Six, I hope.  I wish I could tell you that the chapter improves immensely from there, but this is written by the Maxwells. 

 "Making Great Conversationalists" by Steven and Teri Maxwell rarely brings helpful advice or sensible activities.  This strange lack of useful information, however, is off-set by quirky insights into their writing process or the general rhythms of their lives.  In Chapter Six, the Maxwells decide to answer the question "Can Conversational Skills Be Taught?" .   I agree that teaching conversational skills is possible and an admirable goal - but I question the wisdom of waiting to answer the question until page 96 of a 200 page book.  I think I would enjoy the book more if the Maxwells admitted at this point that they personally are not the people to each this skill.

With the standard absence of transition between subjects, the Maxwells insert a page of rhetoric about why movies, television, video games, computers and books stifle conversation rather than promote it.  The crux of their argument is that when people are engrossed by media, they do not talk.  If someone interrupts them while they are engrossed by the media, the person will be shushed and conversation will be crushed. 

The problem I see with their logic is that good media either allows for conversations while being consumed or inspires topics of conversation after the media is done.   When I was college-aged, my teenage brother saved up and purchased an X-Box along with Mario-Karts.    Within a few months, my mom, my sister, my brother and I ended playing marathon sessions of Mario-Karts against each other.   We were capable of talking while playing Mario-Karts - although it was generally a series of rants about how horribly we were doing interspaced with hysterical laughing when one of us realized we were doing so badly that we were screwed.   

Now, my dad would join us when we went to see local theater.  Unlike video games, other audience members do appreciate silence during acts.  In exchange for two hours of silence, we gained hours of conversational material.   Most recently, Dad played Firs in Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard".   We've discussed the staging, casting, costume and lighting choices of the play - but the longest lasting topic of conversation is Anton Chekhov's surprise that a play he wrote to be a comedy is at best a tragicomedy...and most of the play is simply tragic.

The subject of the evils of modern media wraps up with a very detailed description of how Teri Maxwell always turns to see people who enter the room where her computer is and states that she needs to finish up before talking to the person if she cannot talk right away.   I am astonished by the detailed description of what should be a mundane and workaday habit related to common courtesy.  It's like the Maxwells have cut themselves so far off from most humans that they've forgotten which pieces of information are common - like the phrase "Gotta finish this; be with you in a minute, kiddo" - leading to them feeling like they've made a major breakthrough by being polite.

Speaking of being isolated from all people, the next section about ideas for good talking times with your kids contains no new ideas.  The only one I remembered after reading was the decent idea that some kids relax more when a parent lies on a bed with them.   The reason I remembered that is I ran into a set of pictures of the bedroom of the Maxwell "girls" where Sarah, Anna and Mary sleep.  Anna and Mary share bunk-beds that might not work so well for those two girls.

The benefits of setting up relaxing talking times evaporate if readers follow the questionable advice over the next two pages.  Steven Maxwell is all about having individual meetings with each kid once a week to talk.  If families followed that idea, I'd think it a bit hokey, but harmless.  The problem comes when people follow Maxwell's ideal of using those meetings to go over the personal failings of the kid with an occasional sop of pretending to take the kid's feedback about where Maxwell is currently failing.  I don't remember having major character flaws when I was growing up that required in-depth serious conversations weekly; if I did, the repeating nature of the conversations would make me nervous.

Once we've slogged this far in the chapter, we are rewarded with plans to carefully - oh, ever so carefully - allow kids to practice conversations with people outside of their family.  Let's be honest; this is crazy even for CP/QF families.  Most people let their kids interact with other kids at school, at church and in the neighborhood.   Not the Maxwells - and the control freak moments seep out.

You can also invite another person or family over from your church for dinner. It is certainly a bit easier if it is just one person, such as a young, single adult or a widow or widower. That allows the conversation to focus on that particular person so it doesn't have to be spread among a couple or a whole family. (pg. 102)

Imagine you are a teenager in a family of eight kids with two adults.   In which scenario would it be easier to talk: when one adult visitor is over for dinner or when a similarly large family is over for dinner?   Based on my experience, it's a lot easier to find a person to talk when there are lots of available people to talk with.  The only reason that I can think of for the Maxwells to restrict the visit to a single person is to control the access of their kids to conversation and possibly to control the conversation focus to remain on the parents.

As conversation experience grows, having a family from church over for dinner allows a greater degree of not only practice but also ministry. The girls can have conversations with the visiting daughters and mom while the boys engage the other families' sons and father. (pg. 102)

Goody-goody-gumdrops!  Once the kids have demonstrated that they will not spill deep family secrets or embarass the parents (like 5 year-old Cynthia when she didn't want to talk to a stranger), the kids will be allowed to interact cautiously with other like-minded families.  Now, I'm not sure how that would work for the Maxwell Family since they've always managed to skirt the theology mind field of home-church vs. joining a congregation by running a "congregation" that consists entirely over retired home aged-folks.   The best bit, though, is training kids early to not interact with kids of the opposite gender.   Romeo and Juliet can't be emotionally impure - let alone secretly married and having sex - if they've never spoken to each other, after all.

The next rung on the experience ladder will the conversations with non-believers. When you invite them into your house, you will be cautious to oversee conversations between them and your children. They will not have sensitivity to what a Christian would consider appropriate topics for children's ears. Parents can stop or forestall what they don't want their children to hear. (pg. 103)

Boy, I had so much fun imagining the type of non-believer that couldn't handle being around children or teens without launching into profanity, epic stories of drug use or hedonistic orgy stories - while also trying to figure out where the average CP/QF adherent would find this interesting of an adult.  And then I realized the problem: I was using the standards of mainstream USA to determine what stories are inappropriate for kids.   In Maxwell-land, I am a great example of a non-believer who could warp their kids.  I attended college - and liked it!  I have worked in a career - and found it beneficial!  I married late in life and *gasp* waited to have a baby for several years!  I watch TV! I believe in evolution!  Oh - there are so many ways I could contaminate their children...and I'd never even know.

Anytime your family is out in public, there are conversation possibilities. It could be talking to the checkout person while at the store. Maybe it is the teller at the bank when you stop by to do some banking. What about when you were waiting in line to return or purchase an item and there are people in front of you and behind? When you are out, be watchful for people with whom your children could begin a conversation, and help them initiate the conversation. (pg. 103)

Um.... yes.  That is a possibility - but why do the Maxwells need to explain this?  I generally strike up conversations with people in the wider world - and presumably my son will learn that from watching me like I learned it from watching my parents. 

The next chapter discusses teaching children how to have conversations....which is so weird.....

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......

Making Great Conversationalists: Chapter Three - Part Two

The first post on the third chapter in "Making Great Conversationalists" by Steven and Teri Maxwell focused on the first meeting between two neighbors.  The ideal Maxwell conversation wallpapers over the fact that the new neighbor clearly bought a lemon of a house by either employing a ragingly incompetent inspector or doing the inspection themselves.   

The rest of the chapter alternates between implying that CP/QF homeschooling families don't really know anything about their kids while giving sample conversations that feel sinister since the ideal Maxwell conversation is as much about concealing information as sharing it. 

First up: undermine the last whiffs of self-confidence that the Maxwells' loyal clients might have in their parenting skills:

Within your family, how much do you really know about your children? How much do they know about you? How much do they know about their siblings? Does each love the others enough to open up his life to his family? (pg. 42)

Time out. 

I thought the main difference between homeschooled CP/QF families and the rest of us was that the CP/QF homeschool families had emotional family bonds that could not be replicated by families that spend eight hours apart everyday.  The spouses are bound rock-solidly together forever.  Each parent bonds deeply with their children who they spend mountains of unpressured time each day.  Meanwhile, all of the siblings are best friends with each other.   In exchange for giving up having friends outside of the family and most careers, families are guaranteed an idyllic, deep and satisfying family circle.

Heh.

Of course, if this lifestyle was so natural and God-ordained, the adherents wouldn't need to build so many boundaries between themselves and the rest of the universe. Teenagers and young adults would be able to meet their spouses through church friends or Christian singles groups and date.  Married men and women could trust themselves around people of the opposite sex without fearing an affair.  Mothers and fathers would get to their children simply as their parents - trusting that their life-long relationship had more weight than could be threatened by outside adults.    Women could take pleasure in career and family while allowing men the pleasure of helping keep a home and raising children.   Siblings would learn the truly complementary difference between siblings and best friends.

Or you can follow the Maxwell lead and decide that the only way to cement family bonds is to isolate your family from nearly everyone.

This next conversation between makes me wonder if this is what Lydia sounded like in her surprise courtship to Billy Hill - the one where she ended up sobbing a prayer on a run that God would let her fall in love before she married.

"Hi Ashley. How are you?" Amy asks.

" I'm really good. I have exciting news!"

" What's that?"

" I just started a courtship with Chad Swisher. My dad has been talking to him for months, and I never knew it. My dad just told me last night and asked if I wanted to enter a courtship with Chad."

"Ashley, I'm so happy for you. This will be a very exciting time for you and Chad. I'll add you to my prayer journal. I'd love to hear the whole story," Amy replies. (pg. 45)

Wowzer.

 So...Chad's been talking to Ashley's dad for months - MONTHS - about being allowed to court Ashley.  That's a heap of opportunity costs for Chad and Dad if Ashley replied, "I'm not that into Chad."  If a parent has a good relationship with their kid, the adult child can benefit from having parents who listen to how a romantic relationship is going and make sure that the romantic interest is a good person.   This only works as long as the adult child is more invested in the romantic relationship than the parent is.

Chad's been talking to Ashley's dad for months - and Ashley had no clue. I'm trying to figure out how this all went down.  The easiest way would be to pull a Jim Bob Duggar and screen guys long before the guy is allowed to meet the chosen daughter.  In that case, Ashley's dad's a control freak - but at least Ashley and Chad start a relationship on even footing.   What if Ashley already knew Chad?  Were Chad and her dad lying to her -directly or by omission - about their meetings?   I'd refuse to marry someone who could  lie to me for months even under the guise of protecting my "emotional purity".  Heck, my husband won the "Least Convincing Liar Ever" award for his performance the night he asked my parents for their blessing on asking me to marry him as part of his plan for a surprise proposal on his birthday.  He had been so nervous that the dinner went on way longer than he anticipated...because he kept pushing off asking them.   Well, this meant that I fell asleep on the couch of my apartment at 6:00pm expecting him to be there by 6:30pm - and woke up at 8:30pm with no boyfriend in site.  I got a hold of him and he apologized since he had gotten distracted while shopping but he'd be right over.  He gets to my apartment, I give him a big hug and a kiss, and ask cheerfully, "Where were you shopping that you got distracted for two hours? " expecting to hear about a new store.  My future husband turned as white as a sheet, is visibly sweating, and blurts out, "I can't tell you!".   I blink and respond, "Um....ok. "  That gives him time to start breathing again and slightly more smoothly he replied "After all, you have a birthday coming up..."   We got engaged later that week - and I've always taken some comfort in the fact that he's a pretty terrible liar.

Has Ashley had time to be with Chad as her...suitor?  (What do you call a romantic interest in a courtship anyway?)  Ashley and her dad had their big talk last night so I don't think she's had time to be around Chad since then if he works a standard schedule.  Perhaps courtships work best when the two people speak more to other people than they do to their romantic partners....

Later, the Maxwells wax poetic on the benefits of conversations in life:

Conversations open up a window into another's life. The quality and length of the conversation determines how wide that window is open. Our children's conversations with others will give spice to each day. Many spend precious time reading novels or watching movies, but conversations are true life, not made up fiction. We're able to talk to real people with real adventures, real needs, real hurts, and real joys. Conversations are wonderful opportunities to get a mind off of itself and onto others. (pg. 45)

About that: What are Maxwellian followers supposed to talk about?  Television, movies, theater, dancing, and the majority of books (and I'm assuming music) are off-limits along with all sports that Steven Maxwell doesn't personally like, most outdoor activities, gambling and alcohol.  For the women and homeschooled family members, the family was together during the day so that's not going to lead a lot of new, novel or spicy events to talk about over dinner.  Talking with your family all day sounds great - but if everyone's needs, hurts, adventures, and joys revolve around the same small group of people it doesn't take much for internecine warfare to break out.

I just realized that I feel that a lot of CP/QF households are like polar exploration voyages during the late 1800-early 1900's. Good planning and lots of money generally lead to a crew that can tolerate each other; poor planning or bad supplies devolve into hellish conditions. 

Before we dive into the last quote, think about all of the "good: conversations modeled so far by the Maxwells.  For all of their stilted, canned ways, the conversations do demonstrate that a good conversation involves communicating in a way allows all people in a conversation to stay engaged and active.   Think of that - and read this next "good" real-life conversation:

Recently 16 year old Mary and I (Teri) were returning a couple of items to Sam's Club. The customer service lady looked at Mary and asked her, "What grade are you in?"

Mary responded, " Tenth grade."

"Where are you planning to go to college?" the lady asked.

"I am not planning to go to college. I would like to be a wife and mother someday. In the meantime, I am studying art so I can illustrate children's books. I can do that at home and save all the money that college costs while not being exposed to the negative influences of college."

The grandmotherly customer service lady seemed a little surprised, but Mary had presented her case so well that her only reply was, "That's nice."

In a short conversation, Mary was able to clearly state her goals for her life and persuasively speak against the customary thinking that young people should go to college. She gave a very different view to this woman than what the lady was probably used to hearing. (pg. 49)

As a survivor of guest service work, let me divulge a secret.  "That's nice" with a look of surprise generally means "Are you on crack? What fresh hell is this? I don't get paid enough for this"

On the other hand, I think Teri Maxwell's motherly pride in Mary's response is sweet and loving.  That same maternal pride is why I know I can never homeschool my son (and any other children we're blessed with).  Maternal pride messes up your ability to look dispassionately at your own child's performance.

As an outsider, Mary's response was a conversation-killer, not a perfect response.  Mary has packed so many tropes from CP/QF surrounding the role of women in society, the role of education, the assumption that anything can be learned at home, and the decline of higher education  that the nice lady at Sam's is left gaping.   It's not considered polite to start arguing with a 16-year old at a guest service desk - and where would she even start? 

The kicker is that plenty of teens are not planning to go to college directly after high school - or ever.  Mary's statement of her future career plans only got really jarring when she added the bit about being a wife and mother in the middle.   If she dropped that along with the random dig about "negative influences at college", her response would be within the norms of conversations while signaling that she'd be willing to discuss studying art at home or her interest in illustrating children's books. 

The final awkwardness is that books can't erase passages a few years later.  Mary is now 22.  She has not gone to college, is not married and doesn't have any children.   She has illustrated two children's books - but they were written by her older sister and published by their parents' ministry-business.   So far, she's not making any headway on her goals.  I hope for her sake she'll make good on her dreams - but her family has not managed to find acceptable suitors for her two older sisters and using the three adult daughters as cheap, semi-skilled laborers benefits their parents and brothers so I'm not terribly optimistic.

Next post: Checked-out dads, teaching your kids to narc on each other properly, and nagging your friends to let their younger siblings hand out with you.  Good times.

Making Great Conversationalists: Chapter Two

I've been a mom for exactly 21 months as I write this post.  I've had a lot of experience with various medical and rehabilitation professions having the awkward conversation about issues or delays that my son has.  Let's see....there's been blood transfusions, an infected PICC line, a super-active baby who required special ventilator settings, the time he started showing signs of a NEC infection but was really just thermoregulating as a very young age, lungs that were a bit messed up and the joys of choosing the right type of feeding tube.  That lead to meeting therapists who got to tell us that he was mildly delayed in gross motor skills and fine motor skills.  The fine motor skills improved and the motor skills continued on the right timing just delayed by 3 months.  Most recently, we learned that his gross motor skills had developed more of a lag and that it was time to think about outpatient PT.

I say this because I heard many different, but kind, sweet and caring ways of letting me know that my kid has some issues that need specialized treatment while still respecting my son's awesomeness - and he is freaking amazing - and my feelings as a full-time caregiver

I am so grateful that no one decided to follow Steven Maxwell's method of sharing concerns in his book "Making Great Conversationalists" co-authored with his wife Teri Maxwell. This lovely paragraph comes at the end of 2.5 pages that I would summarize as "Jesus loves us more than you because we've got a successful conference ministry":

Something else grew out of our travel, conferences, and personal conversations with those who attended our conferences. We became concerned about your children. This is a typical conversation one of our children would have at a conference with a young person of, perhaps, 16 years old. (pg. 24)

Yes!  This is how you attract people to your business - sorry - "ministry": insult their children!  How have other people missed this?

Oh, wait.  Successful businesses and ministries cultivate positive relationships with potential clients; the Maxwell habit of insulting the intelligence and parenting skills of their past customers is related to the current dearth of interest in Maxwell conferences, I suspect.

I should feel more insulted - but again, this is one of those paragraphs that drives the author's level of pompous isolation home.   The Maxwell kids are phenomenal conversationalists as evaluated by their parents.  When other kids fail to hit all of the Maxwell expectations, the fault is with the other kids, obviously. 

This next "bad" conversation follows immediately after the last sentence in the previous quote.  Not surprisingly, I believe my gentle readers will recognize that the conversation issue diagnosed by the Maxwell Parents is not the actual issue that's occurring:

Our Anna would initiate the conversation. "Hi, my name is Anna."

" Hi," the new girl responds.

" What's your name?"

"Stacy."

" It's nice to meet you Stacy. I'm so glad you were able to come to the conference. I hope that you will like it and learn something from it. Where do you live?"

"Simpsonville."

" How far is that from here? I am not very familiar with the geography of this area because I am from Kansas."

" Don't know."

" What do you like to do, Stacy?"

" Read."

" Tell me about your favorite book."

" I don't have a favorite."

Through this conversation, Anna is working to engage Stacy. Sometimes Stacy looks at Anna, but other times she is looking around. Stacy halfway manages to answer Anna' questions, but she doesn't give more than basic information, and she never asks Anna a question. (pgs. 24-25)

*PSSST*

Before Stacy goes down in history labeled as a "bad" conversationalist, we should discuss the importance of non-verbal signaling in conversations. 

Stacy - to be blunt - does not want to talk to Anna. 

Stacy is looking for a specific person or persons who is NOT Anna while Anna continues to blithely assume that Stacy has nothing she'd rather be doing than making small-talk with a stranger.

Now, how did we reach this sad impasse? 

The first problem is that we've got two 16 year-old girls on our hands.  The finer social graces of being able to disengage a conversation without insulting the other person can take a long time to work out.  Saying "Anna, I'm so glad to meet you, but unfortunately I promised my friend Hannah that I would talk with her between the first and second session about a skit we are doing at church tomorrow so I have to go now" is something I couldn't do smoothly on the fly until I was in my twenties.  I doubt I would be as monosyllabic as Stacy - but I would have been stammering and vaguely inchoate.

The second problem is that homeschooled CP/QF teenagers have so few chances to interact with their peer group that every second is precious.  When I was the same age, I knew that I'd see my school friends five days out of seven and work buddies at least twice a week.  Using a passing period or even a whole lunch period to have a conversation with a stranger was not an imposition at all.  For poor Stacy, this may well be the only time she sees another homeschooled, home-churching friend for a month or more!  Stacy would have to be a martyr to pass up time with a friend - let alone potential suitor - to amuse Anna Maxwell.

The last issue is the forced yet transient nature of this relationship.  Anna is different than most of the teenagers here; she's a traveling speaker.  She's stuck being a model teenager on display for other families to admire.  That's an ok schtick - but it's not the most attractive to other teenagers.  Plus, Anna is visiting from another state altogether.  How much effort should a local CP/QF teenage girl spend cultivating a relationship with Anna when the relationship is going to be long-distance and highly monitored by one or both parent sets?

One last concern of mine: look at Anna's use of questions in this one-sided conversation.  I know that Anna's trying to start a conversation with someone who doesn't want to talk - but Anna's use of questions implies that Stacy is under some obligation to share whatever personal information Anna wants to know.   The only piece of information Anna shares about herself is that she lives in Kansas.  In return, Stacy's supposed to share her favorite hobby and produce a fascinating synopsis of her favorite book on demand. 

My tip for the Maxwells: Since your family only reads a highly restricted subsection of religious writings, don't be surprised when some people who are genuinely well-read react with visible annoyance to the question "What's your favorite book?"   I have a stock answer ready for that question - but a lot of avid readers find that question deeply annoying because there are so many good books in different genres that it's a bit like asking "Which of your kids do you like the best?"

The next quote is the "good" conversation.

Two 16 year old girls should be able to have a delightful conversation, perhaps a little like this:

Our Anna would initiate the conversation. " Hi, my name is Anna."

" Hi. My name is Stacy. I am excited to be at the conference with my family," the new girl responds.

" Why are you excited about it?" Anna asks.

" Our family has been really growing in the Lord lately. My dad shared some of the session titles and descriptions with us. They sounded really good. I especially like the one about brothers and sisters. Do you have many brothers and sisters?" Stacy continues the conversation.

" I have two sisters and five brothers. It is from those relationships that the Lord has given us the material we share in the Brothers and Sisters Best Friends Forever session. How many siblings do you have, and what is your biggest struggle with them?"

When we realize the good conversation was the exception rather than the rule, we decided that maybe we could assist parents and doing what is the most important to them-- helping their children. (pgs 25-26)

Well, I can see where the conversation is much more enjoyable from Anna's perspective - but Stacy's still not getting to see or do whatever was distracting her during the earlier vignette.

It's still a weird, stilted conversation, though. 

I grew up Catholic so I've never heard anyone use the term "growing in the Lord" to describe how a family is doing.    My twisted sense of humor wishes that Anna had followed up with the question "How has the Lord been active in your life?" so that Stacy could unload about how much better her life has been now that her dad's alcoholism has been in recovery for a month.   It sucks when he falls off the wagon, but at least he's trying now - and the family has enough money for food again!

The fact that Stacy's dad shared some - but not all - of the session titles with the family brought back a funny memory from the spring after my husband and I started dating.  My husband's brother-in-law and sister are highly active in a local Linux conference that has morphed into a sci-fi-fantasy-alternate lifestyle-fiction writer-gamer extravaganza.   By that point, my husband had known me long enough to realize that I would enjoy this conference - or at least be able to roll with it.   Well, we checked into the hotel and I started leafing through the conference program while we waited for an elevator.   I stop on one page and ask, "Is there something you want to talk about in our relationship?" My husband is completely thrown and blurts "No?".  I follow-up with "Is there something you need to tell me about your personal preferences?"  My husband is completely lost so I flip the program over so he can see that I have it open to the quick-reference for the BDSM community activities and workshops.   He and I laugh pretty hard. - and agree that that would be a horrible way to start a discussion about sexual preferences.    I doubt that the Maxwell conferences are that interesting...but I've never been to one.

Getting back to Anna and Stacy's conversation, I feel like part of the reason the conversation is "good" according to the Maxwells is that Anna is getting feedback about what clients of Titus 2 Ministries want.  The current clients like the descriptions and choices which is a good piece of info to have - but man, Anna's life sound more and more conscribed every second.

Let's talk about boundaries for a second. 

Healthy people have boundaries around their personal lives and respect boundaries set by other people.   Anna and Stacy met less than a minute ago - so Anna is massively transgressing a basic boundary by asking Stacy to disclose the foibles of the relationships between her siblings and her.    That question is a conversation-stopper rather than a conversation opener.   A far more acceptable option would be to ask "What are the strengths of your relationships with your siblings?".   Talking about the positives that happen in a family is generally viewed as non-threatening and acceptable.

Why would 16-year old Anna make that mistake?  The Maxwells are super-shelterers. Steven and Teri Maxwell have taken the CP/QF norm of restricting contact between their children and wider society to an absurd level.   As near as I can tell, the Maxwells can go weeks without having more than work-related or forced conversion conversations with strangers.  Learning societal norms require a bit more interaction with non-family humans. 

I can guess why the Maxwell kids don't recognize crossing a boundary.  What I don't understand is why Steven and Teri Maxwell don't remember basic courtesy and boundaries in conversations.  These two grew up in mainstream homes and they both went to college at the University of Missouri - Rolla.  Yeah, they've gone over to a very different life - but that was after their early twenties.  They should know better.

In the next few pages, Steven Maxwell shares his understanding of how communication is different than conversation.  I've pulled out his definitions:

Conversation is the verbal exchange of information between two or more people. (pg. 26)

Communication is the giving or receiving of information such as thoughts, opinions, or facts via speech or writing, whether electronically or by other means. (pg. 27)

He's not wrong - but that's not the same as being complete. 

I dragged out my notes from my one and only college class in Communications.  I learned that communication is the process of converting ideas or thoughts or feelings in a person's head to a form that can be shared with other people.  The advantage of that definition is that it includes lots of non-verbal communication methods as well as media methods.     Maxwell's description misses the scads of information that can be passed by facial expressions like "Continue doing that and you're in SO much trouble!" or "Wow, this has gotten weird fast...."

Conversation, on the other hand, describes interactive communication between two or more people.  A lot of time we think of conversations as being verbal and happening at one time - but conversations can be written and asynchronous.  An excellent example is the circle letters that used to be used to share information among families and groups focused on similar interests.  A more modern example is discussions in comment sections of websites and blogs.    A funny example of an asynchronous conversations involving random and unknown users was the time the guest service team manager placed a sign over the time clock that used "Your" when the correct usage was "You're".  Post-it notes, correction tape, Sharpies and a wide variety of ballpoint pens created a highly annotated sign divided among the "If the word is a contraction of 'you are', the correct form is you're" group and the "get over yourselves" group.   

From here on out, Maxwell treats all conversations where one person is predominating as communication - which is a bit shaky on either Maxwell's or my definition of communication.  Equally oddly, he doesn't seem to recognize that his definition of communication doesn't require that all participants share equally while requiring a balanced back-and-forth in the sample conversations.

We can see some of these quirks in a long story about a pre-screening for Jesse's wisdom teeth removal:

Recently we were at an oral surgeons office who was going to remove our son's wisdom teeth. Jesse and I ( Steve) were escorted into an examining room and instructed where to sit. The assistant turned on a DVD that played for 10 minutes, telling us all about wisdom teeth removal and follow-up care. That's the surgeon came in and began to tell Jesse about the procedure and certain things we should know.

(...)

To this point in the pre-surgery appointment, they were strictly giving us information, first via the DVD and then in person as the oral surgeon recited facts that he had repeated many times before. There was no exchange back from us other than to indicate we understood what they wanted us to know. We were interested in what we were hearing because it would impact Jesse's health. It was neither enjoyable nor awkward-- just the passing of information.

However, after the medical part was completed, the surgeon transformed from a sterile doctor into a conversationalist. He asked Jesse some questions about himself, and the flow of information went both ways. We entered a conversation.

Jesse and I asked him questions on a personal level, and he interned asked us more. He asked about Jesse's school and future plans. He asked about what I did for a living and where we went to church, among other topics. We were able to ask him some questions and learn a bit about his life, including his love for going on medical mission trips to Haiti. For 20 minutes we carried on a conversation. When the communication turned into an enjoyable conversation, it was no longer cold and dry communication but a pleasurable, relationship-building experience. He was a warm, caring person who had a heart for his patients. (pgs. 27-28)

In the first two paragraphs of this quote, Maxwell can't use his own definitions to correctly sort "watched DVD" and "listened to oral surgeon and assented that we understood the procedure" into the right categories.   Maxwell and I agree that his definition of communication fits watching an informational DVD.  What Maxwell blanks on is that he and Jesse were having a conversation with the oral surgeon when the oral surgeon described the procedure, common and uncommon side effects, and after-care for the procedure.  Yes, the oral surgeon was doing most of the talking - but Jesse and Steven Maxwell's indication that they understood what the surgeon was saying and were accepting of the risks and required after-care was critically important.  Jesse and Steven were sending equally important information back to the surgeon by saying "Yes" or "I understand" or "We can do that."  If the Maxwells had wanted, they could have engaged in a more dynamic conversation with the oral surgeon by saying "No, I'm afraid I don't understand the risks" or "Oh, dry sockets aren't a real thing" or any response that made the oral surgeon have to describe things differently. 

The last two paragraphs clarify what Maxwell really means by "conversation".  A Maxwell conversation is an informal exchange of information that is enjoyable to the Maxwells.  This remembered conversation strikes all the topics that a good Maxwell conversation should have - homeschooling, rejection of college or vocational training, bragging about their home church located in a retirement home and a chance for Steven to brag about his family business.  Really, the only flaw was that the doctor pulled out a higher "Jesus" trump card by having participated in medical mission trips to Haiti than Steven could pull.  An ideal conversation would have included the oral surgeon having a conversion experience right then and there with Jesse and Steven Maxwell.  Alas, we live in a fallen world :-P

Rapid topic change: How do the Maxwells choose their doctors?  I had my wisdom teeth removed when I was in my early twenties. I talked to my oral surgeon then for 15 minutes total and about 8 of those minutes were when I was being put under anesthesia or groggily returning to consciousness.  After my son was born, I became a hard-core tooth grinder and cracked a tooth so deeply I had to have it extracted.   I talked to the oral surgeon for 10 minutes at the pre-appointment (mainly because I was in the middle of filling out the medical history when he arrived so he finished it orally with me) followed by a tooth extraction that took less than 15 minutes start to finish.  I really don't remember anything about the oral surgeon who removed my wisdom teeth - but I'm certain I never had a very deep conversation about anything except the oddities of having a small baby attached to a lot of cords with the second surgeon. 

Oh - and that conversation was while he was extracting the tooth.  (I love laughing gas. It kills my anxiety about having pointy metal objects in my mouth while still letting me chat.)

I don't assume that a doctor who is quiet, business-like or even brusque hates their patients.  I pick my doctors for competency in their field and ability to communicate clearly with me.  The anesthesiologist who cared for me during my C-section was very brusque - but that was at least in part because I had two IV pumps fail...simultaneous....in the middle of a C-section that was projected to need at least one blood transfusion if not more.   In the middle of it, I didn't understand why my complaints about nausea seemed to be on the back-burner - but afterwards he explained what happened.  From my point of view, the anesthesiologist focused on the really important issue of keeping fluids in me and handled the less severe issue of nausea and vomiting when he got a free hand.

In case anyone missed it, Steven Maxwell outlines the real importance of teaching your kids to be conversationalists:

As a father at that moment, I was grateful that my 16 year old son had learned the art of conversation. When the oral surgeon ask Jesse questions, he spoke up and articulated his answers. Not only was Jesse able to do that, but he was able to continue the conversation by asking the doctor questions. That is a tool Jesse will use throughout his life. (pg. 28)

Remember, the Maxwells are all about image management.  Jesse earns points in that conversation because he can answer clearly and think of questions to ask the oral surgeon about his life.  Jesse performed well and therefore Steven is proud.   Notice that Steven doesn't seem concerned if Jesse understood the risks of tooth removal....or if Jesse had worries about the procedure...or even if Jesse could correctly fill out a personal medical history.  Nope, as long as the kids make Steven look good, they're fine.

Next post: the real reason those two neighbors don't talk...and a few remembered Maxwellian conversations.