Didn't Expect Derick Dillard to be the First Duggar to Crack

Being a son-in-law of the Duggar clan brings an entirely new level of crazy into a young man's life.  Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have been used to micromanaging their 19 kids lives for decades and have received accolades for their reproductive prowess in the form of a television show, ghost-written books, publicity tours and public speaking gigs. 

Yeah, Jim Bob and Michelle's aura of wholesome Americana got dinged when their insanely negligent handling of Josh's repeated molestations became public knowledge - but I doubt that those revelations changed the family dynamics.  After all, the revelations were not new news to the people who lived through those years.

The tricky bit for sons-in-law is supporting their ever-growing families financially while still receiving some level of financial support from Jim Bob and Michelle. 

• Ben Seewald works for Jim Bob and in a variety of manual labor style jobs.  Austin Forsyth works for his parents at a campground.  With the minimal education both of these young men have, they are pretty well trapped into family businesses especially since their wives are having children.  
• Jeremy Vuelo has always worked outside of the Duggar penumbra - and Jinger and Jeremy seem to be doing fine financially in Texas so far.   
• Derick is in the most frustrating position of them all.  He has enough education on paper to support his family as an accountant - but decided to become a untrained, minimally supported missionary in El Salvador.  When their mission folded, Derick and his family moved back to Arkansas to pursue a year-long course in "ministry".   This has placed Derick and Jill back in the middle of the Duggar clan - and in the middle of the family stresses.

Earlier this year, Derick posted some insulting tweets towards Jazz - a transgender teenager featured on another TLC show.  Personally, I suspect the reason Derick and Jill were not prominently involved in the upcoming season of "Counting On" had more to do with that than anything else.  TLC will swallow a lot of crazy, insulting things from their TV stars  - but Derick was a two-bit minor character on a show that struggles to get advertising revenue.   Either way,  Derick attempted to walk back his generalized hatred of transgender people by claiming that he was denouncing the way that TLC and Jazz's parents earned money off of a teenager.

Needless to say, the internet pointed out that Jim Bob, Michelle, Jill and Derick did the exact same thing.  Pot, meet kettle....

In the middle of the tweetstorm, Derick blurts out that Sam was in the NICU for two weeks - and that his reading comprehension isn't the best in the middle of the night.

No, Derick.  PM was telling you that earning money by filming Israel and Samuel was using your kids to earn money like Jazz's parents and Jill's parents did.

The vast majority of people are unaware that NICUs - and pediatric hospitals in general - have donated funds to cover the costs of meals for parents without a lot of income.  My husband and I received a standard $5.00 voucher in our "Welcome to the NICU" material.  We told our social worker, however, that paying for our own meals was not a financial hardship and that we would prefer the money be saved for families who had farther to drive or less income available.

Personally, I think Derick and Jill should have gotten the lunch tickets in part because they must have a large bill coming for Samuel's stay.   We had no bills for our son's stay - but that was because Michigan has a Medicare program that is called "Thirty Day Medicare" that automatically covers children who are hospitalized for 30 consecutive days or more regardless of parental income.  Since Jack was in the hospital for 108 days, we qualified easily.   The Dillards, on the other hand, had the costs associated with Jill's C-section and 14 days of NICU care.   That's easily $250,000 in hospital and doctor bills if they are uninsured.

As the spat continues, Derick explains that he asked TLC to cover some of the costs of Israel's failed trial of labor and C-section.

Obviously, TLC wasn't interested in paying for medical claims that were expressly excluded in the contract that either Jim Bob signed on behalf of all the members of his production company (a.k.a. his biological children, their spouses and their children) or that Derick signed...but missed the details.

Either way, Derick's pissed about the relative lack of cash that's come his way from the show.

I know the likelihood of Derick or Jill ever reading this is low - but if you do - think about making a break from both the Duggar clan and natural childbirthing.  Derick, be an accountant.  I'm sure you can find a way to help people while earning a decent income for your family.  If you've decided that you want to work in ministry, get a real theology degree from a reputable college and enter a seminary.  Stop doing bait-and-switches like inviting LGBTQ people to an outing for the purpose of trying to get them to realize how sinful they are or offering English tutoring to Middle Eastern university students (read: Muslim) to also expose them to fundamentalist Christianity.   That's not how Jesus worked and is beneath his followers. Jill, get a GED and apply for a nursing program.  You can go to school and take any remedial classes you need while the boys are small.  There's a need for certified nurse midwives - highly educated women and men who handle uncomplicated pregnancies under the supervision of an OB/GYN.  It would take you a while to work up to that level but that would be a real accomplishment that you could be proud of.

Maidens of Virtue: Chapter 13

Whoo-boy!  When it rains, it pours. 

My son is down with his first runny/stuffy nose cold.  In spite of my best efforts to keep him from coughing, at least once a day he's coughed enthusiastically enough to spit up some of his last meal - and it always lands on my shirt and pants.   The albuterol medication that is keeping his lungs nice and open is also making him shake like a tiny little jitterbug. 

First thing Monday morning, I carried my hacking son down the steps and found my husband conscious but laying flat out in the the kitchen.  He had dizziness so severe he couldn't stand up or walk on his own.   He's never had anything like that in the past and there was no way I could safely spot him out to the car so I called 911, got the baby settled (and as mucus-free as I could), arranged for my mom-in-law to take the baby, and drove my husband to the hospital once the local first responders had verified that his vital signs were good and helped him out to the truck.

Good news is that my husband has benign idiopathic vertigo which has miserable symptoms but isn't a sign of a stroke or any severe medical problem.

As I told a good friend in exasperation, I trust my ability to deal with all sorts of insane situations - but what I'd like right now is a break from the insane situations.  As a side-effect of this week's crazy, I'm behind on blogging along with pretty much everything else right now.  I hope to be back to three posts a week next week, God willing.

Chapter Thirteen is titled "I love me, I love me not", but I think a more accurate title is "Stacy McDonald is a terrible person."  She spends the chapter going off the Calvinistic deep-end by explaining why "we" all are horrible, horrible sinners.  I might be more sympathetic if she started with or focused on her own failings but she spends the vast majority of the chapter blaming people with mental illnesses for failing to recognize their own personal sins.   

Bluntly, this chapter is gross and completely contrary to modern Christian teachings that recognize that Jesus wants his followers to support the most vulnerable among us including the mentally ill.  Feel free to leave without reading the rest if it will disturb you.

Mrs. McDonald starts by trying to rehash the theology of human sinfulness, but since she's not received theological training the gaps in her Biblical studies show quickly.

If we are to view ourselves biblically, it is much more realistic to deal with our depravity swiftly and honestly rather than to agonize over a false sense of our perceived personal goodness. Admittedly trying to locate our "good qualities" is much more fun and far less painful (Proverbs 27:5-6). (pg. 118)

I....have no idea why she pulled that verse in a paragraph that discusses self-examination.   Proverbs 27:5-6 is "Better is open rebuke than secret love.  Well meant are the wounds a friend inflicts, but profuse are the kisses of an enemy."  But then, I'm probably overthinking this.  Mrs. McDonald's major theme throughout "Maidens of Virtue" is that saved Christians or members of the Elect can be as judgemental as they want towards the unsaved/damned.  In case any of her readers have a gentle heart - or dare to question the morality of being crass and bitchy towards the rest of humanity - Mrs. McDonald tries to hide behind the "iron sharpening iron" rationale.  That argument is badly undermined by the fact that Mrs. McDonald already admitted previously that she had a friend who was clearly struggling with personal hygiene issues and her response was to do absolutely freaking nothing.  Wait - that's not entirely true.  She did nothing for the guy and then used his story to make money in a book.

In terms of her disdain for our good qualities, that is in direct contradiction to Genesis 1:27 which explains that all humans were created in God's image. 

The next quote is where Mrs. McDonald shows that her grasp of mental health issues is as tenuous as her grasp on theology:

Many young girls today have serious problems (anorexia, bulimia, obesity, promiscuity, drug abuse, alcoholism, and the list goes on). Many individuals are convinced that the answer to the issues young girls face today could simply be solved by a hearty dose of self-esteem. Actually, the search for self esteem is more than a modern buzzword: it is an age-old pursuit. For years man has thought too highly of himself. Our flesh screams for praise and glory (Genesis 11: 4). (pg. 118)

Having a healthy self-esteem is some protection against mental illness - but self-esteem alone is not a cure for anorexia or chemical dependencies.  All of the listed issues require some level of medical intervention in the form of drugs and/or psychotherapy.   

Mrs. McDonald is especially blind on the subject of obesity; doctors are finding more and more support for the fact that most humans can gain weight far more easily than they can lose weight.  Obese people are not lazy or sinful; they are fighting a very long-term battle where losing weight causes their metabolism to slow down drastically.  A slowed metabolism means that these people can be eating less than 1,200 calories a day and still gain weight.  Truthfully, a metabolic system that could keep a body going through long periods of semi-starvation by slowing the metabolism down was extremely beneficial through most of human history.  Naturally slender people who lose weight easily are more of a recent trend in evolution....

The Bible verse quoted is from the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis.  She interprets it as a sign of the human desire for praise and glory which is a bit strange.  The most literal reading I can get is that the humans were challenging God - not angling for praise or glory.   Ironically, that same literal reading shows that humans were doing a good job at challenging God; God was so concerned about this latest development that he went down with the other gods and scattered human kind.

I feel bad for Stacy McDonald's teenage daughter in this next quote.  It cannot be fun to realize your parent is a horrible person.

While writing this chapter, I discussed the subject with my thirteen year old daughter. Sympathetically she wondered about young people who fall into such a pit of despair that they take their own lives. Even as sheltered as my daughter was, she was somewhat influenced by the humanistic notion of value and self-esteem.

" But, Mom," she said, " if they knew how special they were, they wouldn't be overcome by hopelessness. Aren't some people depressed because they just don't think they're any good?"

"Maybe so, but are they any good? Are any of us any good?" I asked, raising an eyebrow in her direction.

Knowingly, she smiled, " I see what you mean. It just seems so sad."

And it is sad. If we're to be like Jesus, we should have compassion for those who are suffering in the pit of despair. But viewing sin falsely will not lift anyone out of that pit. (pg. 118-119) 

I kept running away from writing this section - like I found myself doing chores around the house that I hated rather than dealing with writing a response to this section.  I finally made myself sit down and reflect the emotions it brought up in me - a mixture of anger and despair - and I realized why I didn't want to write this section.

My freshman year English teacher committed suicide when I was a sophomore in high school.  I wasn't particularly close to this teacher, but he was a damn good English teacher who forced me to buckle down and improve my expository writing skills.  I brought a pile of candy canes to school with me the last day before Christmas and was passing them out to my friends and anyone who wanted one.  At the end of English class, I walked up to the teacher's desk and offered him a candy cane.  He looked deeply touched by my offer and wished me a Merry Christmas.  Even as a rather naive 15-year-old kid, I felt saddened by how much my random offer of a candy cane meant to him; I wondered how lonely or painful his life was outside of school. 

His suicide crushed a lot of students.  A friend of mine has never forgiven himself for the fact that he and his friends acted like complete assholes in the teacher's class the year he died.  I grew up as the daughter of a teacher.  I tried to explain to my friend then - and now - that any teacher who survived the first 3-5 years of teaching wouldn't quit teaching - let alone commit suicide- because his students were jerks; that's one of the expected downsides of teaching. 

No, he committed suicide because the pain of his mental illness was too much to bear anymore.  I remember thinking that he couldn't have expected his own death to cause the amount of trauma for his students, colleagues and family that it did - and that I would keep that thought in mind if I ever felt suicidal.

I know this because four years later I had a severe episode of depression where I started having suicidal thoughts.  After my teacher died, I promised myself that if I was ever suicidal, I would do everything I could think of to get better before I attempted suicide.  I went to a doctor on got on an SSRI.  I started therapy.  The therapy was helpful - but it was overwhelmed by the fact that the first SSRI I tried caused me to have intense suicidal impulses.  Now, that drug has a black-box warning about that side-effect in teens and young adults, but I missed that warning by 18 months. 

After a few months of fighting the urges, I was so, so exhausted and my will to fight was slipping away.  I remembered that one of the things I had promised myself was that I would seek inpatient treatment at a local psychiatric facility before I attempted suicide.  I was so depressed and anxious at that point that I didn't think inpatient treatment would actually help me - but I wanted to be able to say that I had tried.

Well, inpatient treatment did help me a lot.  The professionals there got me off the SSRI that was not working well for me, tried a combination of other SSRIs and added an anti-anxiety medicine.   Truly, the anti-anxiety drug was a game-changing addition.  By taking my undiagnosed anxiety from a 11+ out of 10 down to a 1 or 2, I had enough mental energy left to start working on techniques to manage my depression until the SSRIs kicked in.

Slowly, but surely, I got my life back onto the track I wanted.  I transferred to a college much closer to home and started part-time.  I saw a therapist.  I exercised.  I met new people at college.  I started working in retail again.  I felt like a person again instead of an amorphous grey blob. 

The most ironic thing?  I was such a timid little mouse of a person at that point that I had no particularly interesting sins on my conscience.  I was a non-drinking virgin who had gone on sporadic chaste dates.  I attended church regularly.  I honored my parents and got excellent grades at school.  Hell, I grew up in a family that some people treated like pariahs - not everyone deals well with disabilities and death - so I didn't even go through a clique-ish, catty phase in junior high school; I was nice and friendly to everyone.

Stacy McDonald is a self-righteous prick whose ignorance is only outweighed by her prejudices.  Don't listen to her shit - she's a toxic whack-job. 

Next quote is a great example of how NOT to write a paragraph.   

Ours is an adulterous generation. The reason for the rise in " unwanted" pregnancies (fornication), abortion (murder), homosexuality (sodomy), alcoholism and drug abuse (drunkenness), and suicide (murder and faith in man, rather than God) is sin pure and simple. It's not just the fact that people are sinning; people have been sinning since the Fall. Our response to sin is the problem. When we redefine sin as " emotional problems" or a " sad result of a difficult childhood" we allows sin to remain hidden in the hearts of hurting people. (pg. 120)

Words have meanings.  This paragraph makes so little sense if we define the words that it gets ridiculous. 

Adultery is any form of extramarital sex - and nothing else in the paragraph talks about adultery. 

Fornication, on the other hand, is premarital sex where neither partner is married to someone else. 

An unwanted pregnancy can result from adultery or fornication, but it can also result from completely lawful marital sex since the unwanted quality comes from the readiness of the parents, not the marital status of the parents.  At the same time, some people who are technically fornicating have very wanted pregnancies.  (The world is a wide and varied place, Mrs. McDonald.) 

At all points of publication of this book, the rate of abortion in the USA has been dropping; strong economic times and easy access to hormonal birth control tend to do that. 

The Biblical fears around homosexuality I believe should be treated in the same way as the Biblical stipulations on legal slavery - a historical abominations that we have moved beyond into a more nuanced understanding of human rights and human sexuality.

Any rate of murder or suicide is too high, but modern rates are really very low because the rule of law tends to tamp down on the number of revenge killings and we have some medical options for dealing with some mental illnesses.. 

Drunkenness is a completely different can of worms than being chemically dependent; people with severe chemical dependencies may not get high or drunk but still require a substance to maintain a semblance of functionality.

So....is sin the problem or is our reaction to sin the main problem?  They can't both be the problem, Mrs. McDonald.

Personally, I think the main problem is that Mrs. McDonald likes knowing gossip about everyone around her far more than she likes behaving as a Christian.  In the Protestant ethos I thought there's no good reason for anyone to need to know the sins of anyone - that forgiveness was between a person and God.    As a Catholic, sometimes a person needs to confess their sins to a priest - but the priest is forbidden on pains of excommunication from ever revealing the confession.  Priests will also let you know (if you ask) that they don't remember who tells them what sins - partially because they are trained that way, but mostly because people confess the same 5 sins over_and_over_and_over.    Mrs. McDonald's fascination with digging the sins out of the hearts of hurting people from traumatic childhoods feel ghoulish to me.

The last quote for today is some nice revisionist history for us:

Not so many years ago, our country held to many biblical principles. Sin was usually treated as sin. Our laws reflected a biblical foundation, and the people -- Christian or not -- lined up with that thinking. There was a time when it was a shame for a young Maiden to even be alone with a boy. It was a disgrace to be found pregnant out of wedlock, and abortions were considered... murder! Homosexuality was so repugnant that it was rarely even whispered about! Now if we turn on the news, abominations are brazenly performed before our eyes, and we are told that we are judgemental, fanatical, or critical for calling these things sin. (pg. 120)

Ummm - when was that?   You can't just backward fundamentalist-Baptist-wash history. 

The early colonial USA averaged 20% of births to unmarried women - and more than 30%  when couples who gave birth to a living child 8 months or less after their marriage.  Even during times when sexual mores were more strictly adhered, women feared being exposed by a premarital pregnancy far more than they worried about being alone with a boy. 

Concerns about abortions were completely different than the current state of affairs; the major landmark involving abortion was "the quickening" which is when the pregnant woman can feel fetal movements at 15-22 weeks.   The concerns were somewhat about the life of the child - but as much about the fact that abortions prior to modern surgical techniques and access to antibiotics were as likely to end the pregnancy by leading to infections or bleeding severe enough to kill the mother.

I doubt we have a realistic picture of the number of people who were homosexuals in the past.  First, a lot of conservative pastors seem oblivious to the existence of lesbians.  Oh, they get all freaked out about gay men - but some percentage of "spinsters" and "old maids" who lived together were actually living with the woman they loved.  Secondly, people could be married to a partner of the opposite sex while having extramarital relationships with someone of the same gender. 

The local news that Mrs. McDonald watches is much more fascinating than mine!  Our channel focuses on local sports and events with a quick update on local crime.  We don't have abominations on tap - alas!

That last sentence is the crux of conservative Christianity hypocrisy.  Mrs. McDonald wants to be able to criticize everything and everyone freely - but no one else better dare criticize her!

Mrs. McDonald, if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.  If you want to call people unnatural abominations because of their sex life, you should be able to handle being called a judgemental fanatic because of what you say.

The last page and a half of the chapter is a surreal turn-around where she encourages girls to have self-esteem because they are saved....but it is completely unbelievable after her rant on our depraved nature.

To Jill (Duggar) Dillard From One Mother to Another

Hi, Jill!

I think you've started to realize that you grew up in a cult.  IBLP and ATI taught you that adoption was extremely dangerous spiritually but you have spoken of being willing to adopt.  Those same teachings implied that men with beards and long hair were possessed by the devil but your husband has experimented with a variety of lengths of hair and beards.

You are learning that the world has more options available and that's a good thing.  I want to warn you, though.  Growing up in a high-demand religious movement like IBLP or ATI (or Vision Forum) puts you at higher risk for being pulled into other high demand groups.  My concern is that you are ensnared in the most risky form of natural childbirth (NCB) ideology that conflates an unmedicated home birth with being a good mother.

IBLP/ATI/Vision Forum promise people that following "Biblical" rules will lead to happiness, fulfillment, and a life free from pain or trauma.  Jill, you know that didn't work in your family.  The rules that were supposed to protect you and your siblings instead provided cover for your parents to abdicate their responsibility to seek help when Josh admitted to molesting you and Jessa.  The rules didn't stop Josh from molesting three other girls - and neither did your parents. Your parents were too invested in chasing the limelight of fame for having a lot of cute, well-behaved kids to act like parents.

NCB fits the same pattern.   Facing labor, delivery and raising a child is frightening.  Pregnancy and children take whatever illusions we have about control over our lives and dash them. You saw your mother's last two pregnancies end with Josie being born at 25 weeks and Jubilee's stillbirth which has to make the thought of starting a family more nerve-racking than normal.  Believe me; I get it.  I grew up in a family where my twin and I were born very prematurely and our middle brother died in infancy.   NCB offers a seductive lure; labor and delivery will be safe, painless, and empowering as long as women follow the right rules.  Women need to learn the right mental state by meeting with their midwives during pregnancy.  Labor coaches should be picked by their ability to support your goal of birthing at home.  By laboring without pain medication or medical support, women will realize their personal strength and feel empowered by the memory of a triumphant vaginal birth to a healthy baby.  Thanks to following these rules, the mother and baby will bond instantly, breastfeed perfectly, and everything will be great.

It's a nice dream - but is a dream worth the lives of your sons?

Israel's birth was a comedy of errors.  His water broke before you had contractions and you thought you saw meconium.  You chose to labor at home for the next 48 hours.  I wonder if you realize today how dangerous that choice was.

• Once the amniotic sac has broken, there is a risk of bacteria that normally colonize the vagina migrating into the uterus and causing a potentially life-threatening infection in Israel.  The longer the time the membrane has been ruptured, the higher the risk of infection.  Most doctors would want to be sure that Israel was tolerating labor well and that you weren't showing any signs of an infection before letting labor progress past 24 hours after the membranes broke.  
• On top of the risk of infection, meconium staining in amniotic fluid can be dangerous.  Meconium is the first bowel movement passed by an infant.  The danger with meconium is that a baby who is distressed before birth will instinctively gasp for air.  The gasps draw meconium down into their trachea.  When the baby is born, the meconium can obstruct the baby's breathing or go into the lungs leading to pneumonia or scarring.

After 48 hours, you went to a hospital with a labor and delivery department.  I hope that you told them the truth about how long your water had been broken and the fact you thought you saw meconium.  I hope that the reason they let you labor for another 24 hours was that Israel was doing fine on continuous monitoring and neither of you were showing signs of infection.   

Your shock when the OB/GYNs told you that Israel was breech was memorable.  You spent 70 hours in unproductive labor trying to birth a baby who was in a position that could not be delivered vaginally.   You agreed to a C-section and gave birth to a giant 9 pound 10 oz baby boy who was as healthy as a horse. 

There is a bit of irony in Israel's birth; trying for a home birth with a midwife increased the chances of him being born by C-section.  Some OB/GYNs are willing to try a procedure called an external version on breech babies.  Near the end of the third trimester, you'd get an ultrasound to check Israel's position.  If he was breech at 36-38 weeks, the doctor could give you an epidural and attempt to roll Israel from the breech position to a vertex position.  The advantage is that Israel would have been around 6 pounds 10 oz to 7 pounds 10 oz and more easy to wiggle into the right position.   Not all OB/GYNs do external versions - but the 13 OB/GYNs in the practice I went to did them if a woman wanted to and was a good candidate.   If an external version couldn't be done, at least you would have had time to plan mentally for a C-section and would have missed 70 hours of labor.

The reason Israel's birth was a comedy instead of a tragedy is because Israel was a strong, healthy baby before birth.  His placenta was working well and giving him enough oxygen between contractions that he could tolerate being cut off from oxygen during the contractions over the course of nearly three days.  Israel benefited from some good luck, too.  He didn't have any issues from meconium inhalation and didn't develop a massive infection during the long labor after his waters broke.

Perhaps you hoped your dream home-birth was merely being deferred until your next child.  But, Jill, even midwives admit that a home birth after C-section (HBAC) has a 383% HIGHER chance of stillbirth than a "normal" homebirth.  The stillbirth risk of a HBAC compared to a low-risk hospital birth is 1185% higher. 

Truthfully, I doubt you realized the risks you were taking - but you saw the outcome when something went very wrong during Samuel's birth.

I wondered a bit when I heard that Samuel had been born.   All that your family had stated was that you were in labor for 40 hours before having a C-section.  I've had several friends and family members who had successful and unsuccessful vaginal births after C-sections (VBACs) - but no one was allowed to labor more than 16 hours prior to vaginal delivery or C-section.   Maybe you found an OB/GYN with a very laid-back approach to VBACs - or maybe you tried a vaginal home birth after C-section (HBAC).

Alarm bells really started ringing, though, when I saw the picture of Derick holding Samuel.  Derick was wearing the standard hair-net and disposable sterile gown that support people get decked out in for a C-section.  Samuel was wearing a diaper, a nasal cannula, an IV in his right arm, three monitor leads, a blood pressure cuff on his right leg and an oxygen saturation lead on his left foot.   Samuel, in other words, was wearing the standard outfit of a NICU baby. 

The pictures released from the hospital look like two parents enjoying a new baby - but NICU parents know the signs.  I recognized the monitoring cords on Samuel trailing around Derick; Jack had the same ones.  Jack also had the little bit of reddened skin on each cheek after the stickers that hold the nasal cannula were removed for a bit.    Samuel and Jack shared a dislike of weaning off oxygen and having their little fingers take a bluish tint when they got tired during a wean. 

The picture of Jana cuddling Samuel was adorable - and brought back memories of schlepping Jack around the house with cords that weighed more than he did.    Honestly, I don't know how you managed a newborn on oxygen with a curious toddler in the house - but you guys managed somehow.

You have been blessed with two little boys who survived rough starts in life.  If you are blessed with another pregnancy, please do not risk your child's life and your own life by attempting a home birth after two C-sections!   Find a local obstetrician and let them decide if you are a candidate for a vaginal birth after two C-sections at a well-equipped hospital.  If the doctor recommends a repeat c-section, be grateful that we live in a time and place where the operation poses few risks to you or your child. 

A vaginal birth is not worth a child's life - or yours.  

Preparing Sons: Chapter Six - Part 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How has his plan worked out for his kids? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Preparing Sons: Chapter 6 - Part Two

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*snorts*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This last quote is amazing:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maidens of Virtue: Chapter 12

In Chapter 12, readers are treated to a moralistic story about trusting God's Plans - which means believing wholeheartedly in Dad's latest idea for the family. 

This story feels sinister to me and I couldn't figure out why at first.  Later, I realized that this is a cleaned-up version of the time Mike Pearl moved his family to rural Tennessee to avoid CPS.   That worked out really well for the family; he had no source of income after the move so the family was living on raw milk, cabbage, wheat and either canned tuna or cat food.

Hannah had always wanted to live in the country, yet when her father quit his job and announced to the family that they were moving to Tennessee, and they were going to live on the family farm they had inherited, she hardly knew what to think. At first she thought her prayers have been answered. Finally she was going to taste fresh milk and raise chickens. No more neighborhood living for her! She was finally going to be free to breathe the fresh air and gather bouquets of wildflowers in the spring. She wondered if people who live in the country really walk barefoot through clear running streams like they do in the book she had read.(pg. 111)

The first paragraph of the story is filled with red flags.  Successful farms generally have transition planning.  That's the term to describe how one owner/operator of a farm retires from operating the farm and passes the farm off to the next owner/operator.  There are millions of good options for transition planning - but this family missed them all!  Hannah's Dad is working off the farm far enough away that he will have to move his family to take over the farm.  He's not running any of the farm operations.   Essentially, he's making a mid-life career change when the person who previously ran the farm died.  Is the farm operational?  Is it profitable?  Can it support Hannah's family?  We have no idea - and that's scary.

Equally bizarre is the fact that Hannah's family has never visited this farm since Hannah is old enough to remember.  If they had, she would have had ample opportunities to taste fresh milk, be around chickens and gather wildflowers in any season but winter.   Farmers love to show off their animals; it's a compulsion.  Every time we had visitors at my in-laws' house on the main farm they would be offered a tour of the milking operation and to see my chickens.   Pride is a strong motivator - plus there are always chores to be done.  If I could combine socializing with feeding and watering the chickens, I'd do that.

Hannah's books have not prepared her well for country life.  Streams near farms tend to be silty from the natural substrate of soil.  Fresh country air generally smells like some combination of manure, rotting vegetation, and diesel fumes.  Fresh milk tastes pretty close to pasteurized milk but causes more incidences of food poisoning.  On the other hand, fresh eggs are awesome!  Picking wildflowers is fun - but she missed the hours of weeding and harvesting in the garden.

So if this was a dream come true, why did she feel so restless? She snuggled deep under her warm covers and try to ignore the fleeting feelings of fear and discontent that disturbed her. What about her friend, Rose? Would she ever see their family again? She looked around at the walls of her room - - this was the only home she had ever known. What would it be like living somewhere else? What if she never had another friend as long as she lived? Were there spiders and snakes in the country? (pg. 111)

These are normal concerns for a kid to have before moving.  The concerns are never addressed again in the story - so who knows?  Maybe she'll be friends with Rose or maybe her family is excited about more fully isolating their kids.  Maybe their new home will be a rambling farmhouse with modern amenities or maybe the farmhouse is falling apart and unfit for habitation.

And yes, Hannah, there are both spiders and snakes in Tennessee.  Depending on where she's moving from there could be more of each types.  Some parts of Tennessee even have venomous snakes - but not highly dangerous one.  The bites are more like the Massasauga rattlers we have here in Michigan - painful but generally non-lethal.

She had noticed the concerned expression on her mother's face as he made the announcement to the family. Hannah wondered if her father was making a mistake. Surely her mother would never have said she thought so in front of the children. Maybe her father had made a rash decision and was stepping outside of God's will. Was that possible? What if Papa was leading the whole family into a desperate situation? The cold hand of fear and doubt gripped her heart. Her peace melted along with her trust in her contentment. (pgs. 111-112)

My curiosity has been piqued.  Did Hannah's Dad discuss his life-changing series of choices with his wife before he quit his job and decided to move the family to a farm?  I know that CP/QF families pride themselves on instant complete submission to the whims of the male head - but that's no excuse for basic respect between spouses!  Hannah's Mom at least deserved a chance to battle her emotions in private before letting the kids know about the plan.

I don't remember ever worrying that my parents were making a rash decision - let alone a decision that could lead us all into crushing poverty - during my childhood or teenage years.  My parents are both sane adults who thought out the ramifications of various options before acting on them.  Hannah's family sounds less stable.  Has the family been through bad times because of rash decision making before?  Is this an example of acquired fear from seeing other CP/QF families made financially ruinous decisions?

I skipped the next paragraph and a half that can be summarized as "Hannah got out of bed and went downstairs".  She finds her parents praying in the living room which is a bit foreign to my life experience.....

Quietly she looked around the corner and found her parents praying and thanking God. Hannah heard her mother's broken voice asking for forgiveness for doubting God sovereignty and trusting the riches of a secular job more than the riches of God's provision.

Hannah watched as her father raised his hands to Heaven, thanking God for his family. She listened as he ask God to forgive his sins and as he prayed fervently for God's direction. Hannah's father beseeched God for his beloved bride and for each of their children. (pg. 112)

See, God's sovereignty only counts when manly men become self-employed in a field that combines crushing physical labor with volatile price fluctuations.   When God provides a man with a steady income through a job that allows him to support his family, God is no longer sovereign!  In fact, when a person is offered a good job, the only moral option is to scream "No!  I will not allow God's sovereignty to be impugned!" and flee like the wind.  *rolls eyes*

So....I don't think Mrs. McDonald understands what divine sovereignty means because I'm quite certain the Christian concept of divine sovereignty cannot be overtopped because a woman is worried that her husband is making a dumb choice.

Mostly off-topic: the Catholic Church requires that theological books be inspected by a bishop and approved prior to publication.  I always thought that was overkill - and still do mostly -but I'm starting to understand the rationale.

I hope Hannah's Dad was beseeching God for guidance and direction before he quit his job.....

Hannah knew those earlier doubts didn't matter now. God had called Hannah's family to live elsewhere; and she would trust Him, trust her father, and be content with His choice. She knew from Scripture that God orchestrates our lives and his plans are good - -and that Daddy was praying. Hannah hurried back to bed and snuggle deep under the handmade quilt she loved. Then she closed her eyes and tried to imagine the taste of fresh milk. (pg. 112)

And that's the end of the chapter.  Hannah's completely convinced and comforted because she saw a few minutes of her parents praying.  The fact that her mother had gone from worried to crushed at her lack of faith in a few hours isn't worrisome to Hannah; her family is apparently always emotionally labile.  Has Hannah worked through her worries about moving away from her one friend Rose or the fact that there are snakes?  Nope, Hannah's already perfecting the CP/QF womanly art of stuffing unpleasant or inconvenient emotions deep down inside her.

Samaritan Ministries is Going to Kill Someone - Part Two

In the first post in this series, I discussed the scary requirement that women who have ectopic pregnancies while on Samaritan Minstries health-care cost-sharing plan undergo "watchful waiting" and forego removal of the pregnancy until either the fallopian tube ruptures or the baby's heartbeat stops.   This is extremely dangerous for the mother because a ruptured fallopian tube can cause massive internal bleeding - and makes no difference in the outcome for the baby because the longest a pregnancy can survive in a fallopian tube before a rupture is 16 weeks which is two months prior to viability.

There are two other items in the "Maternity and Newborn Care" section of Samaritan Ministries that give me pause - and I need to give some background on how coverage works to explain my concerns.

Samaritan Ministries has two levels of cost-sharing coverage available.  The cheaper version is called "Samaritan Basic".  In return for a lower monthly cost-share amount, families have an inital deductible of $1,5000 for each medical issue that they need to cover (or have discounted by the doctor) before needs can be shared.  Once that basic benchmark is reached, 90% of the remaining cost is covered.  The older version is still available as "Samaritan Basic" and for ~$200 more a month, families receive a lower deductible of $300 a month and 100% of the remaining need is covered.

Here are the two sections that concern me:

Home Births—Home births have the $300 Samaritan Classic and $1,500 Samaritan Basic initial unshareable amount waived, and are not subject to prorating (see Section VI.D) because they reduce overall maternity costs.

After Cesarean—The $300/$1,500 initial unshareable amount is waived for a vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC).

I have grave concerns about the morality of offering women a monetary reward in exchanged for increased risk during labor and delivery.

I believe that home births should be legal - but I also believe that women should be informed of the much higher rates of injury and death for both the infant and mother in the rare case that a condition or situation occurs where rapid, trained medical care is needed.  The vast majority of home births will end with a healthy baby and a healthy mother because statistically most births are uncomplicated.  The tricky bit is that there is no way to screen pregnant women perfectly to determine who will be able to deliver at home safely and who will have a delivery complication prior to delivery. 

 Within the CP/QF community, Jill (Duggar) Dilard and Jessa (Duggar) Seewald have attempted four home births - and ended up hospitalized after three of them.

Jill had her water break with Israel and was in labor for 48 hours at home before going to the hospital.  (Laboring for 48 hours after membranes have ruptured without medical care is a bad idea;  the longer the membranes have been ruptured the higher the risk of an infection beginning that could have bad outcomes for Israel.)  At the hospital, Jill and Derick were surprised to find out that Israel was in a breech position that could not be delivered vaginally.  Jill had an uncomplicated C-section with Israel.

Jessa's labor with Spurgeon was straightforward if extremely painful.  The baby was delivered without any problems, but Jessa lost a lot of blood when the placenta was being delivered.  Her blood loss was severe enough that she had to be transfered to a local hospital for treatment.  Thankfully, she didn't have any retained placenta pieces and the bleeding stopped easily.  Now, the Duggar spin is that the blood transfusion she received the next day was simply a precaution because she was really tired after birth - but blood transfusions are never a standard occurance after giving birth.   By comparison, I came into the hospital with poor blood volume due to HELLP syndrome when my son was born, bled fairly little during his C-section and never needed a transfusion.  Don't get me wrong; I felt like shit-warmed-over for the first week after his birth and needed wheelchair transportation if I was going farther than a few hundred feet - but Jessa Seewald was worse off than I was.

From my point of view, telling pregnant women that they should giving birth away from trained medical professionals, pain relief, antibiotics, blood transfusions, operating rooms and emergency support for their newborn to save money is absolutely sick.

There's a question I have as well - will Samaritan cover the entire medical cost of a home birth gone wrong without proration, deductibles or maximum?   As nasty as home birth side-effects can be for mothers, the side-effects for babies can be catastrophic.  When a baby is born after oxygen deprivation or meconium inhalation, the medical treatments add up fast: three days of full-body cooling with 1:1 or 2:1 nurse to baby supervison, oxygen support through a ventilator, CPAP, or ECMO, neurological testing, blood work, dealing with feeding issues... a baby can rack up $10,000-$50,000 in charges per day.  Don't forget:  Samaritan - unlike commerical health insurance or  Medicare  - doesn't cover durable medical equipment once the kid is discharged.  My son went home on a medical-grade monitor and oxygen from a concentrator.  Those are rented at $300 per month each.  That doesn't include the disposable items he needed like nasal cannulas, NG tubes, specialized tapes to stick both to his face.    Samaritan does cover 45 days of home nursing care - which won't last long a baby goes home on a ventilator. 

The second issue surrounds vaginal births after C-sections which is shortened to VBACs.   VBACs carry a higher risk of side-effects to both the mother and infant.  The most concerning issue is that the scar from the previous C-section will rupture.  To qualify for a VBAC, women need to have a scar that is entirely contained in the lower section of the uterus.  These type of scars have a 1% chance of rupture during a VBAC so women who want to attempt a VBAC need to do so in a hospital where the baby can be monitored and an emergency C-section can be done if a rupture occurs.  A uterine rupture carries a higher risk of postpartum bleeding leading to a transfusion or an emergency hysterectomy.  Very rarely, the baby suffers injury or death from oxygen deprivation between when the rupture occurs and when the baby can be delivered by C-section despite being in the hospital.

I would hate for a woman to feel compelled to try a VBAC for finanical reasons; that seems cruel to risk serious complications because a family badly needs money for other things. 

My largest concern is for women who decide to try a VBAC at home.   Having a VBAC in the hospital mitigates the risks of bleeding and rupture by having an operating room and mass blood tranfusion protocol immediately available if the baby shows signs of distress.   Havign a VBAC at home raises the risk factor exponentially.  First - not all women who have had a C-section are good candidates for a VBAC.  Because my son was born very early, I have a scar that reaches into the upper section of the uterus.  These types of scars have between a 6-12% chance of rupture during labor.  Spacing between babies is also important for VBAC candidates; a pregnancy conceived earlier than 18 months-2 years after a C-section more likely to have a uterine rupture because the scar didn't have time to fully heal before being stressed by the next pregnancies.  Since home birth attendants are almost never OB/GYNs or CNMs in the US, mothers who are being cared for by non-medical professionals prior to a home birth may not be screened appropriately.  Second - if a rupture or catastrophic bleeding occurs, precious time is wasted in transporting the mother to a hospital, getting her stabilized and starting a C-section.   This can directly lead to the death of the baby or the mother.

Preparing Sons: Chapter Six - Part One

There is a normal stage of development that kids go through where they assume that everything done by their family and everything they personally like is "good" or "normal" while everything done by other people that is different or that they don't like is "bad" or "abnormal".

I hit that stage when I was around 7.  Due to some unusual external circumstances, the vast majority of friends I had were fluent in English plus they used one other language at home.  The language varied from ASL at our house to Spanish, Vietnamese, Polish or Dutch.

When I found out that most of my classmates spoke English and only English, I was horrified.  Why weren't their parents teaching them a second language at home?  How could they communicate with their deaf sibling/cousin/niece/nephew?  How could they communicate with their grandparents who lived overseas?   I couldn't believe that their parents were being so cavialier with second-language acquisition and the family relationships that language maintained.

By the time I was in junior high, I realized that my family and our friends were different than most other families in the area.  Most of my school mates came from families that had been in the US for three generations or more.  Their families had stopped using any language besides English several generations ago.  Also, deafness was far more rare than I had thought it was.   I understood why families did different things with language - and I accepted that their way of doing things was as "right" as my way.

This chapter makes it clear that Steven Maxwell is still working making decisions at a seven-year-old level of comprehension.  The world according to Maxwell is divided into different levels of "good" and "bad" actions:

• Most Moral:  Church-related items (tracting, performing at nursing homes or homeless shelters etc.)
• Morally Acceptable: Steven Maxwell's current hobbies (running, exercising, weight lifting)
• Mildly Unacceptable: Hobbies Steven Maxwell has given up (recreational vehicle ownership and use)
• Solidly Immoral: Hobbies that Maxwell views as being crude or beneath him (Hunting or fishing, professional sports, gambling, alcohol use)
• Ragingly Immoral: Any hobby that Maxwell feels loosens his control over his family (Youth sports, all forms of visual media)

The chapter itself begins with an ancedote that my husband and I reference as "Penny Pete's slide into HELL!":

When Randy was 5, his mother taught him to play a little card game. It was called " Penny Pat", having the objective of winning the other person's pennies. What started out as an innocent gesture of love by mother desiring to spend time with her son soon let her son to a passion for gambling. Within years he was addicted. School held little interest. Seemingly an innocuous game led to an enslaving passion. How would this have affected Randy's ability to care for his family had Randy, as an adult, not come to know Jesus Christ as his Savior and then freed from the chains of gambling? (pg 86)

Wow!  My state spends millions of dollars each year funding help for problem gamblers - but the real solution is "don't play card games with 5 year-olds!"  The solution is so clear now!

The really ironic point is that Randy was never a problem gambler from a close read of the story.  Randy's story has three time points:

• During childhood, Randy played a card game where he won pennies.
• During his teenage years, Randy found that gambling with friends was more fun than school work.
• As an adult, Randy found Christ and gave up gambling - along with other hot-button issues like drinking alcohol and all forms of dancing.

If Randy was a problem gambler, Steve would have one (or more) time points that have painful recollections like "Randy lost his tution playing online poker" or "Randy couldn't pay the heating bill one winter because of his gambling debts."  Randy is a normal person.  He was exposed to some form of gambling as a kid.  He liked card games more than schooling as a teen.  As an adult, he could choose to avoid problematic behaviors around gambling.  Hell, I fit that story line except that we didn't play cards for pennies; no, my dad would buy us scratch-and-win lotto tickets because we loved scratching the shiny silver stuff off with pennies.  One of my sibings may have won once - but I'm not even sure about that and the total winning was like $5.00.

Personally, I don't recommend gambling with children - but more because it takes fun games and turns them into high-stakes nightmares for kids who are still working on emotional regulation.  As an adult, gambling doesn't appeal to me - mainly because I enjoy  the process of scratching off the shiny material with a coin more than I like winning $5.00 from the ticket.

The next anecdote includes Steven Maxwell holding himself as a great example of how to avoid potentially ruinous activities:

Teri and I have chosen never to try downhill skiing. Is skiing sinful? No, of course not! Perhaps we thought it would not be fun? No. We knew it would be an exciting way to enjoy the winter outdoors. However, friends have told us how expensive a hobby skiing is, and we saw no reason to create an appetite in ourselves for it. (pg. 86)

Alrighty then.  We now know that the Maxwell Family Adults can't be trusted to determine if an activity fits into their yearly budget and cannot figure out how to do that activity as cheaply as possible.  Duly noted.

For the rest of the universe: Any hobby can be expensive.  One of my favorite episodes of "Malcolm in the Middle" - which seems to be loosely based on my family :-) - involves the father, Hal, getting involved with "Dance, Dance Revolution" team competitions at a local arcade and spending $150 on dance shoes to improve his pencil turns.   

Downhill skiing can be expensive - but not prohibitively expensive for a family of five on the salary of an engineer.  Assuming Teri and Steve went skiing in my local area of Michigan, a lift ticket and ski rentals would run between $50-60 depending on day of the week and time.    Yup, downhill skis can be expensive to own and skiing clothing gets pricey quick.  Of course, if you buy the skiis and poles second-hand, buy new boots that you wear for 10-15 years and buy off-brand hunting clothing that is windproof, you can outfit yourself for a fraction of the price.   

I love cross-country skiing and have outfitted myself affordably.  I purchased boots for $60.00 online from the manufacter at the end of the season, got a used pair of skis for $30.00, replaced my original pair of poles for $15.00 and bought adult snow pants for $19.99 in the hunting section instead of $99.00 in the skiing section.  The boots will last me for at least 10 years, the skiis may outlast me, the snow pants are in their 5th season and the poles are usually good for 10-15 years.  Likewise, I love to swim.  I buy 3-4 swimsuits during end-of-season markdowns yearly for $30 a piece and stock up on goggles and swim caps when they are on sale.  Plus, both are a good investment for my physical health since they encourage me to exercise 6 times a week and for my mental health by getting me out of the house and in nature or with other people.

The next ancedote shows how nothing is ever really the fault of Steven Maxwell - or any other patriarch in CP/QF families.  (I skipped a paragraph in the middle filled with Bible verses about "God's best".  You're welcome :-) )

Flying small private planes with a passion for me. I acquired my appetite for flying from my father. I fed it, and it became a passion. Twenty years ago my Lord Jesus told me no more flying. God spoke to my heart about discontinuing since I had to take a significant amount of our limited family income to fly each month. There is nothing sinful about flying; it just wasn't God's best for me.

[...]

Even though a wife agrees to the expenditure doesn't mean she believes it is God's best use for the money. When I was spending the family's money on flying, it was okay with Teri . She said, "Yes," because she loved me and wanted me to be happy.

Some men may whine and subtly pout when they don't get their way. Eventually the wife will say, "Go ahead". In a flash we have spent the money with our wives' " full" blessing. We must remember, though: even if we can finagle our wives into agreeing it doesn't mean that it's the Lord's will. (pg. 87)

So....Steven Maxwell's love of flying small planes was the fault of his father for taking him flying as a kid - and Teri Maxwell for giving into Steve Maxwell's whining and sulking.    The rationale reminds me more of arguments I've heard from immature freshmen in high school than adult men - and the kids who made these kind of arguments often had much less successful trajectories than kids who said "Yup.  I screwed up.  I'll try to do better next time."

Flying private planes is really expensive - like $125 an hour with a mininum of 2 hrs expensive.  The weird oversight is that having a pilot's license and keeping it up-to-date can be helpful in entering aerospace engineering.  I have a cousin who works in aviation engineering.  He got a small-aircraft license while in college and budgeted to get enough hours in a plane to maintain his license while he was looking for work in aviation engineering.  When he received a job at the company he wanted, he found out that his flight experience and license had been a major factor in separating him out from other candidates.

Steven behaved like a jerk - but even jerks make smart career choices sometimes.

Realizing the seriousness of my influence on my children, I tried to carefully guard the appetites that are stirred within them. We must understand that our children's lives will not be ruined if they miss out on some fun experiences. For example, there have been opportunities for my children to go for a private plane ride or a motorcycle ride. I have not pursued any of those offers. Would they have had fun? Absolutely! However, I know that they would have come away " hooked" with an appetite for something that God might not have directed to be part of their lives. I would love to see God lead one of my children to be a missionary pilot, but I won't take the chance of stirring up a " flying" appetite unless God very clearly directs. (pg. 88)

*raises hand*
I have a question.  Can any of your kids afford to pay $250.00 for a two-hour plane rental?  No?  Then what on earth are you worrying about?

My dad grew up in a family of 8 kids on a railway worker salary.  One of my aunts always wanted a horse - and her siblings were pretty blunt that that would never happen.  Well, my aunt has owned four horses that I remember on a librarian's salary.  She's never married - but she also probably has high functioning autism severe enough that living with a husband or kids would be extremely stressful for her.  I feel strongly that she's following God's will for her life; she's a loving owner to her horses and the horses keep her around other people who she likes.  She also rescues collies and an occasional completely crazy cat or two.  (I like her cats - but my family attracts completely psychotic cats....)

I don't think Steven Maxwell has listened to God's calls for his family very well.  He smothered Christopher's desire to be an EMT and didn't steer Christopher to attend college to get a graphic design degree when Christopher was interested in that area. Instead, Christopher launched a design company that failed within a few years.  Christopher is allowed to be a photographer for weddings - but Sarah's the family member who has a real knack for taking photos.  Sarah, on the other hand, is slotted as the family author of children's books - but Teri has the best writing ability of the family.  Since Nathan did well in computers, the other sons have been pushed to follow that lead.  It seems to be working for Joseph - but John's running a dead-on-arrivial agriculture site along with selling homes. 

Oh, well.  Not much I can do about it.

So far, we've learned that "Childhood Card Games = Enslaving Passion" (5. A), that "Downhill Skiing = Possibly Spending Money!" (2. B).   In the next post, we'll learn about movies, TV, and professional sports.