There's been a rough cold going around West Michigan. I was hoping against hope we could miss it if we all washed our hands enough - and ignore the fact that my husband and I work around large numbers of people and have a preschooler.
We got the plague last week.
Everyone has survived - although one more day with a crabby preschooler may have changed that.
The little guy may have gotten Fifth Disease...or rubeola...or maybe the cold caused him to develop the viral rash colloquially known as "Slapped Cheek Rash". He looked a bit like a garden gnome. I took him to the doctor when the nurse line* let us know that we needed to bring him in since he had a rash. Turns out the receptionist forgot to hit the "Patient Ready" button and we ended up in the waiting room for an hour. The Garden Gnome Preschool Edition was good company, though, and we met a very nice resident who managed to examine the Garden Gnome without too much fuss.
That was my first experience with viral rashes. I found myself wondering idly if Jasmine Baucham, Jana Duggar or any of the SAHDs who raised multiple younger siblings had more experience with childhood rashes - and how depressing if the answer was yes.
We're into Chapter 12 of Jasmine Baucham's "Joyfully At Home" titled "Why Do You Live At Home?" Essentially, Jasmine attempts to walk other SAHDs through an apologetics course to teach them how to answer crazy questions like "Wait....you are doing what?" and "Shouldn't you attempt to get some career training?" The issue is that 19-year old Jasmine is really sheltered from the harsh realities of adult life - like the fact that some men leave their wives and children - and so her answers manage to be both idealistic and fantastic at the same time.
Here's a great quote demonstrating how strangely sheltered she is:
Well, the interest in her blog isn't based on the fact she's an evangelical SAHD; it's because she's the daughter of Voddie Baucham and received a lot of publicity thanks to Vision Forum and her father's self-promotion. Believe me, there are plenty of SAHD blogs that probably get a few hundred views a year - so SAHDs don't need to worry about being flamed by liberal visitors because most will never have a visitor comment.
Or the girls can pull a Maxwell and close down all comments on posts with material more controversial than "Here are photos of kids!"
I am curious, though; where is the line where a blog becomes off-limits for Jasmine? Is it based on political views, religious views or sexual orientation? Would a right-wing heterosexual LDS BYU college student blog be too scary? How about a right-wing evangelical college student who is homosexual? What about a left-wing evangelical heterosexual who lives at home right now?
I find the flip comment about limiting curiosity weirdly unattractive. I can wrap my head around not reading blog that are of a different viewpoint because of personal comfort. But claiming that she's literally not curious - not even a little bit - makes her sound either dull or boring.
This next quote is out of the mouth of a thirteen year old visitor when she found out about Ms. Baucham's current life as a SAHD.
Honestly - the kid's not wrong.
The average SAHD is living like a young teenager until she gets married.
Let's look at Anna and Mary Maxwell. Anna works part-time as a customer service representative for her brother; I worked as a grocery store clerk starting at age 16. Anna and Mary run a Bible club for kids at a local apartment complex; I ran CCD classes at my church starting when I was 16. They babysit for their expanding set of nieces and nephews who live on the same block; I was babysitting local kids starting when I was 14. Anna wrote a weirdly passive-aggressive post about how more people should use Google than ask the Maxwells questions about computers or for recipes. That level of self-important obliviousness is classically found in young teens who don't recognize that employers give them trivial jobs to do because the teens are unready to do anything else. Mary wrote a post about how to start lettering that has a disorganized first paragraph followed by "Practice a lot?" without any useful examples. That post gives me flashbacks to reading high school rough drafts - and not the rough drafts from successful students.
Here's the problem - and the overarching theme for my response to the next two chapters. Living at home isn't a problem; refusing to gain any marketable skills and employment references is.
Imagine that something happened that required the Maxwell girls to start careers right now. They have NO non-family references. They have no post-secondary education or vocational training. Anna's work for Nathan is a starting point - but only if she can hide the Maxwellian disdain for anyone who has the audacity to use the customer service provided as a term of being a client of Nathans. Sarah and Mary....I've got nothing.
If I pushed, I could probably get them retail or fast-food jobs - but only because the unemployment in my neck of the woods is at historically low levels and employers are struggling to fill positions. When unemployment increases, the Maxwell girls would rapidly be blocked out of those positions by people with references and previous job experiences who are applying for the same jobs.
Looping back to Jasmine, she spends this chapter and most of the next chapter dancing around one major difference; she's attending college online while at home. Entirely online college degrees are not something I recommend for a variety of reasons - but Jasmine has managed to get and keep teaching positions in home-school extension groups using that degree. Why is she dancing around that? Well, a truly good SAHD must be childlike - and children don't take steps to become financially independent.
Thank God Jasmine's family didn't live by the ideals in her book - and I'm terribly sorry for the daughters whose families did.
*Seriously, I called because my kid had a rash - but was hoping that if I described it as superficial, non-blistering, lacy and not petechial I could get a "keep on giving him Tylenol, Motrin and fluids until he's fine". Dragging a three-year old into a medical setting in the middle of flu season was NOT my idea of a good time.
Thursday, February 13, 2020
Thursday, February 6, 2020
The Battle of Peer Dependency: Chapters One and Two - Part One
Proof we have a merciful God - I've misplaced my copy of "The Battle of Peer Dependency" by Marina Sears! Fortunately (or unfortunately), I had already transcribed the next few posts and had notes on what I thought.
The first chapter is a drawn-out, melodramatic slog up to Jeff's death near the end of the chapter. For the curious, Jeff died in a freak single-car accident on his way to work. The second chapter is about how Marina coped with that tragedy.
In between loving family anecdotes ending with hammy reminders that tragedy or peer dependence happened in spite of being happy, we learn a few things about Marina Sears' view of God:
Mrs. Sears' God is petty, cruel, and profligate in turn.
Mrs. Sears is doing her best to be a shining example of how God takes care of widows and orphans. When God fails to provide as she had hoped, she's understandably pissed. Rather than explaining that young widows are allowed to be angry at God, Mrs. Sears implies that God punishes people who are mad at him. That's a strangely non-Biblical idea since Jesus - following the path of the prophets before him - spent much of his life angry at God. Instead, we're left with a God who can do anything - even let a very needed father and husband die in a freak accident - and who will punish us if we ever object.
On the flip side, Mrs. Sears' God also holds vast wealth and power that he parcels out to his followers. No wonder Mrs. Sears was so angry; she was only asking that God sell her house located in the middle of nowhere without the effort of a relator!
Look, I have no idea why God doesn't end all suffering and pain right now. That's so outside my pay grade that I've got nothing. What I do believe is that we can be angry at God without having to worry about being hit by a lightning bolt and that support in hard times comes from other caring people.
Next example of a scary God:
Fear of arthropods - even pathological fear of arthropods - is not a sin.
There are no Bible verses about how God expects us to subdue scorpions in sock drawers as a sign of faith.
If God leaves a pregnant widow and three children in a rural house thousands of miles away from family and tens of miles away from help in an emergency for 15 months so that the widow can get over a fear of scorpions, the rest of us are screwed.
Marina Sears lives in fear of her life's consequences. Selling a house is hard. Selling a house that was recently sold without improvements is even harder. Selling a recently purchased house located in the middle-of-freaking-nowhere while dealing with a traumatic grieving situation is insanely difficult. Depending on the local market, moving the house in 15 months may well have been a miracle! But instead of being honest with how choices that Jeff and Marina made before his death affected her after his death, Marina focuses on how any flaw in her perception of God's Plan is really due to a personal sin of hers.
She spends a lot of time discussing her fear of scorpions. She buried the lede, though. She casually mentions that someone was trying to break into the house. That's genuinely scary - and she ignores it because it can't easily be blamed on her life choices......
The Bible is full of verses that talk about how God is a jealous God. Traditionally, those verses are taken in the understanding of God is a jealous God because followers are expected to be monotheistic in a society where most other groups were polytheistic.
Marina Sears' God is also jealous - but in a very self-centered and personal way. Marina Sears' God reacts with jealous temper tantrums whenever Marina gets any kind of support from any humans rather than directly from God himself. In this case, Marina and her kids are literally kept trapped in the middle of nowhere until she's reliant enough on God.
That's a pretty common method for abusers to control their victims, fyi.
Is Marina's God jealous - or is Marina? That's a decision that each reader needs to think about as we explore how Marina's discussions from God give her the rationale to control her children excessively.
The first chapter is a drawn-out, melodramatic slog up to Jeff's death near the end of the chapter. For the curious, Jeff died in a freak single-car accident on his way to work. The second chapter is about how Marina coped with that tragedy.
In between loving family anecdotes ending with hammy reminders that tragedy or peer dependence happened in spite of being happy, we learn a few things about Marina Sears' view of God:
Mrs. Sears' God is petty, cruel, and profligate in turn.
Mrs. Sears is doing her best to be a shining example of how God takes care of widows and orphans. When God fails to provide as she had hoped, she's understandably pissed. Rather than explaining that young widows are allowed to be angry at God, Mrs. Sears implies that God punishes people who are mad at him. That's a strangely non-Biblical idea since Jesus - following the path of the prophets before him - spent much of his life angry at God. Instead, we're left with a God who can do anything - even let a very needed father and husband die in a freak accident - and who will punish us if we ever object.
On the flip side, Mrs. Sears' God also holds vast wealth and power that he parcels out to his followers. No wonder Mrs. Sears was so angry; she was only asking that God sell her house located in the middle of nowhere without the effort of a relator!
Look, I have no idea why God doesn't end all suffering and pain right now. That's so outside my pay grade that I've got nothing. What I do believe is that we can be angry at God without having to worry about being hit by a lightning bolt and that support in hard times comes from other caring people.
Next example of a scary God:
Fear of arthropods - even pathological fear of arthropods - is not a sin.
There are no Bible verses about how God expects us to subdue scorpions in sock drawers as a sign of faith.
If God leaves a pregnant widow and three children in a rural house thousands of miles away from family and tens of miles away from help in an emergency for 15 months so that the widow can get over a fear of scorpions, the rest of us are screwed.
Marina Sears lives in fear of her life's consequences. Selling a house is hard. Selling a house that was recently sold without improvements is even harder. Selling a recently purchased house located in the middle-of-freaking-nowhere while dealing with a traumatic grieving situation is insanely difficult. Depending on the local market, moving the house in 15 months may well have been a miracle! But instead of being honest with how choices that Jeff and Marina made before his death affected her after his death, Marina focuses on how any flaw in her perception of God's Plan is really due to a personal sin of hers.
She spends a lot of time discussing her fear of scorpions. She buried the lede, though. She casually mentions that someone was trying to break into the house. That's genuinely scary - and she ignores it because it can't easily be blamed on her life choices......
The Bible is full of verses that talk about how God is a jealous God. Traditionally, those verses are taken in the understanding of God is a jealous God because followers are expected to be monotheistic in a society where most other groups were polytheistic.
Marina Sears' God is also jealous - but in a very self-centered and personal way. Marina Sears' God reacts with jealous temper tantrums whenever Marina gets any kind of support from any humans rather than directly from God himself. In this case, Marina and her kids are literally kept trapped in the middle of nowhere until she's reliant enough on God.
That's a pretty common method for abusers to control their victims, fyi.
Is Marina's God jealous - or is Marina? That's a decision that each reader needs to think about as we explore how Marina's discussions from God give her the rationale to control her children excessively.
Sunday, February 2, 2020
Joyfully At Home: Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven of Jasmine Baucham's "Joyfully At Home" has the delightful title of "Overcoming a False View of God's Sovereignty and Embracing The Bigger Picture".
Are we overcoming the false view of God's Sovereignty which leads to embracing the bigger picture - or are we overcoming the false view of God's Sovereignty and the false view of the bigger picture?
I think Jasmine meant to do the former - but her inability to shake free of the CP/QF obsession with marriage for women makes the chapter feel more like the latter. Like the previous chapter, the entire chapter focuses on marriage as being the only desirable state for an adult woman - but single women had better not feel bad about not being married! God is angry when people who recognize that they are getting the short end of the stick have the audacity to feel angry or bitter about being left behind.
This chapter - compared to a real chapter about God's Sovereignty - shows off the inherent roadblock in CP/QF life for accepting that some women are called to be single. Jasmine Baucham fails to describe any paths for adult women besides marriage. This absence highlights the complete lack of milestones or chances for recognition that a girl is growing into an adult woman outside of marriage. In broader society, women have many possible chances to celebrate adult milestones like high school graduation, graduation from post-secondary education, housewarming for an apartment, housewarming for a new home, and celebrations inherent with having a job. Yes, there are still a separate set of celebrations surrounding marriage and motherhood - but in CP/QF land, a really Godly Woman only graduates from homeschool, gets married, and has babies.
It's a bleak world for a woman who misses the window for getting married.
With that background, let's look at the first quote:
Is disappointment the main theme really?
The first girl isn't disappointed; she's scared witless. Eighteen is so very young - but a sheltered 18-year old who has heard her whole life that women only matter as wives and mothers has no way of knowing that she's going to be in a much better place to be a wife if she waits to get married until after age 20. The lifetime divorce rates for people who marry before age 20 are the highest of all so why not wait a few years until age 24 or 25 and spend the years between homeschool graduation and marriage learning how to be an adult.
The best way to get rid of the fear is to be around men and....well, date or court. To find a partner, a woman needs men to know she exists and that's she's interested in getting to know men as potential spouses. The details of dating vs courting vs whatever matter much less than sending a clear signal of "I'm here and available!"
The second girl is also anxious - although somewhat less than the first because she's had decent luck finding out that guys are interested in her. For me, she's the most relatable of the three women because I did wonder if I was being too picky in the dark hours of the night sometimes. Here's the thing, though. Those feelings passed in the light of day when I was busy with my job and activities. The feelings certainly stopped dead on horrible first dates. The feelings was replaced with dread when I contemplated going on one more date with a guy I met at work when I worked from 7pm-2am. He was fascinating at 3am after work - but mainly because I was punch-drunk tired. Dates during normal daylight or early evening slots were awkward and dragging.
That feeling sucks - but a job, volunteer opportunities, hobbies or anything that gives a purpose to a young woman's life outside of being a wife and mother tends to mitigate that desire to marry the next guy who seems remotely interested.
Ironically, Miss Baucham seems to be leading girl #2 away from settling while implying that girl #3 should settle for the next guy who comes along. Maybe God will send her TheOne - or maybe he'll marry someone else and that'll be that. Either way - girl #3 is not doing the next "acceptable godly young man" a favor if she marries him while she's carrying a torch for TheOne.
Even at 19, Jasmine was more than old enough to recognize that there are far more men in the group "acceptable godly young men" than are in the group "marriageable men who I could be married to happily".
Just remember - being angry at God means you are an immature toddler!
After....dunno.... three chapters of informing young women that they can be Godly without early marriage - Jasmine informs women that marriage comes when God decides young women are worthy of marriage. You know - just like when parents decide that their kids deserve ice cream for dessert.
I triple-dog dare Jasmine Holmes to contact her buddies Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin and tell them that God hasn't sent them husbands yet because they aren't ready for marriage yet.
Mrs. Holmes won't do that, though, because that would be cruel - and that quote is brutally cruel to women who want to marry but haven't met the right man yet.
Are we overcoming the false view of God's Sovereignty which leads to embracing the bigger picture - or are we overcoming the false view of God's Sovereignty and the false view of the bigger picture?
I think Jasmine meant to do the former - but her inability to shake free of the CP/QF obsession with marriage for women makes the chapter feel more like the latter. Like the previous chapter, the entire chapter focuses on marriage as being the only desirable state for an adult woman - but single women had better not feel bad about not being married! God is angry when people who recognize that they are getting the short end of the stick have the audacity to feel angry or bitter about being left behind.
This chapter - compared to a real chapter about God's Sovereignty - shows off the inherent roadblock in CP/QF life for accepting that some women are called to be single. Jasmine Baucham fails to describe any paths for adult women besides marriage. This absence highlights the complete lack of milestones or chances for recognition that a girl is growing into an adult woman outside of marriage. In broader society, women have many possible chances to celebrate adult milestones like high school graduation, graduation from post-secondary education, housewarming for an apartment, housewarming for a new home, and celebrations inherent with having a job. Yes, there are still a separate set of celebrations surrounding marriage and motherhood - but in CP/QF land, a really Godly Woman only graduates from homeschool, gets married, and has babies.
It's a bleak world for a woman who misses the window for getting married.
With that background, let's look at the first quote:
Is disappointment the main theme really?
The first girl isn't disappointed; she's scared witless. Eighteen is so very young - but a sheltered 18-year old who has heard her whole life that women only matter as wives and mothers has no way of knowing that she's going to be in a much better place to be a wife if she waits to get married until after age 20. The lifetime divorce rates for people who marry before age 20 are the highest of all so why not wait a few years until age 24 or 25 and spend the years between homeschool graduation and marriage learning how to be an adult.
The best way to get rid of the fear is to be around men and....well, date or court. To find a partner, a woman needs men to know she exists and that's she's interested in getting to know men as potential spouses. The details of dating vs courting vs whatever matter much less than sending a clear signal of "I'm here and available!"
The second girl is also anxious - although somewhat less than the first because she's had decent luck finding out that guys are interested in her. For me, she's the most relatable of the three women because I did wonder if I was being too picky in the dark hours of the night sometimes. Here's the thing, though. Those feelings passed in the light of day when I was busy with my job and activities. The feelings certainly stopped dead on horrible first dates. The feelings was replaced with dread when I contemplated going on one more date with a guy I met at work when I worked from 7pm-2am. He was fascinating at 3am after work - but mainly because I was punch-drunk tired. Dates during normal daylight or early evening slots were awkward and dragging.
That feeling sucks - but a job, volunteer opportunities, hobbies or anything that gives a purpose to a young woman's life outside of being a wife and mother tends to mitigate that desire to marry the next guy who seems remotely interested.
Ironically, Miss Baucham seems to be leading girl #2 away from settling while implying that girl #3 should settle for the next guy who comes along. Maybe God will send her TheOne - or maybe he'll marry someone else and that'll be that. Either way - girl #3 is not doing the next "acceptable godly young man" a favor if she marries him while she's carrying a torch for TheOne.
Even at 19, Jasmine was more than old enough to recognize that there are far more men in the group "acceptable godly young men" than are in the group "marriageable men who I could be married to happily".
Just remember - being angry at God means you are an immature toddler!
After....dunno.... three chapters of informing young women that they can be Godly without early marriage - Jasmine informs women that marriage comes when God decides young women are worthy of marriage. You know - just like when parents decide that their kids deserve ice cream for dessert.
I triple-dog dare Jasmine Holmes to contact her buddies Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin and tell them that God hasn't sent them husbands yet because they aren't ready for marriage yet.
Mrs. Holmes won't do that, though, because that would be cruel - and that quote is brutally cruel to women who want to marry but haven't met the right man yet.
Monday, January 27, 2020
The Battle of Peer Dependency: Chapter Three - Part One
In working on a post on Jasmine Baucham's "Joyfully At Home" a few days ago, I recognized that CP/QF life advice for young women is "Be someone else!". Young women are supposed to mold themselves to be the perfect wife for a future husband. Because they are so young and so inexperienced, those young women don't recognize the impossibility of preparing to be a perfect wife for a man who doesn't exist yet. I also doubt those young women can conceptualize that the process of finding a spouse and settling into married life changes both parties. That's looking at the short-term; trying to become the woman your future husband needs 30 years down the road rapidly descends into chaos.
Now, at least young Jasmine was keeping her audience somewhat confined by focusing on the needs of a future husband with glancing references to the completely imaginary children of that marriage. Marina Sears joins Geoffrey Botkin and Steven Maxwell in thinking far more radically about what one human being can plan. Why limit control to conforming yourself to a future husband when you can control your children forever?
This quote from Chapter Three of "The Battle of Peer Dependence" clarifies the goal of parents - and the bolded section is from the original:
In the United States and most of Europe from the Middle Ages onward, a nuclear family created at marriage gained the largest degree of freedom that any person received during their lifetime. That nuclear family was deeply interconnected with obligations to their parents, their siblings, their neighbors and the larger society - but each nuclear family unit was allowed to make decisions. Because of this, men and women both received greater levels of freedom upon marriage. Men's freedom came from becoming the head of the household. Women's freedom came from being the right-hand of the head of the household.
That is not the only family system, however.
A different system that was prevalent in Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece and many civilizations in Asia places the responsibility for all family decision making on the eldest male in the family. In this system, all males, their wives and their unmarried children are under the authority of that eldest male - whom I am going to refer as the paterfamilias from the Latin term - until he dies. At his death, the power passes to the next eldest male. In this system, marriage does nothing in terms of raising the amount of freedom for young men or women. In fact, marriage timing and partner was generally decided by the paterfamilias based on the needs of the larger family. Let's say that the family would benefit from a connection to the Smiths. The paterfamilias for the two families meet and decide that the younger daughter from Family A should marry the Smith's middle son. Neither of the people involved in the wedding are consulted for trivialities about personal preferences because neither of the people have any level of freedom over marriage choices.
Marina Sears works under the assumption that God expects children to remain under the parents' authority forever. Now, Mrs. Sears - and Geoffrey Botkin and Steven Maxwell who espouse similar beliefs - would never be so crass as to declare themselves the paterfamilias of their children and grandchildren. That would be too obvious of a power-play in the United States where people expect grown adults to show certain levels of independence from their parents. Instead, the paterfamilias wannabes support keeping children and teenagers isolated from pretty much everyone outside the immediate family so that the family members never see any other options for living during their formative years. By the time the now-adult kids are looking to marry, the kids should have internalized the family culture perfectly and live exactly like their parents want them to live.
Does it work? Well, I have no idea how well Marina Sears kept her kids under her control as they got older - but the outcome has been decidedly mixed for the Botkin and Maxwell clans.
The Botkin clan married off the three oldest sons who have had a few kids each - but the Botkin daughters are well beyond the expected age of marriage for CP/QF girls and the two youngest sons are unmarried in their late 20's. The middle son Benjamin seems to be supporting himself by composing music; the remainder of the family works for Lucas' T.Rex Arms business of producing specialized weapon accessories by CNC machine. That sounds nice enough - but nine grandkids from three sons is hardly the massive brood of Botkin grandchildren Geoffrey envisioned in his 200-year plan.
The Maxwells have certainly succeeded in that they've managed to land all four married sons in homes within 0.7 miles of Steve and Terri's home and have so far produced 17 grandchildren with one more to be born next summer. On the flip side, the families of Nathan, Joseph and John Maxwell seem to be much more relaxed in clothing styles than Steve and Terri were at the same age. (Meanwhile, Christopher Maxwell's family is now more conservative in clothing than the remaining unmarried Maxwell kids.) Similarly, Joseph and John Maxwell's families appear on the blog much less frequently than the other two married brothers and the unmarried sisters. Those two brothers might simply want less internet exposure for their children - or they might have carved out slightly more space for their families from the clan.
"The Battle of Peer Dependency" is cult-speak for "No one can question the will of the parents".
That's going to make for some fun reading, I'm sure.
*Speaking of the Maxwell Family, Anna Maxwell - wife of Christopher Maxwell - could use some thoughts and prayers right now. She developed a breast lump during her most recent pregnancy that was managed with imaging until the lump grew rapidly in her third trimester. There is a very high likelihood that the lump is cancer based on the imaging done when it began to grow. She was induced at late 36 weeks or early 37 weeks of the pregnancy and delivered a healthy baby boy. They've got six kids under the age of 8 and she's facing some combination of surgery, chemo and/or radiation. Our lives are very different - but no one ever should have to face cancer - let alone while having large, young family to care for at the same time.*
Now, at least young Jasmine was keeping her audience somewhat confined by focusing on the needs of a future husband with glancing references to the completely imaginary children of that marriage. Marina Sears joins Geoffrey Botkin and Steven Maxwell in thinking far more radically about what one human being can plan. Why limit control to conforming yourself to a future husband when you can control your children forever?
This quote from Chapter Three of "The Battle of Peer Dependence" clarifies the goal of parents - and the bolded section is from the original:
In the United States and most of Europe from the Middle Ages onward, a nuclear family created at marriage gained the largest degree of freedom that any person received during their lifetime. That nuclear family was deeply interconnected with obligations to their parents, their siblings, their neighbors and the larger society - but each nuclear family unit was allowed to make decisions. Because of this, men and women both received greater levels of freedom upon marriage. Men's freedom came from becoming the head of the household. Women's freedom came from being the right-hand of the head of the household.
That is not the only family system, however.
A different system that was prevalent in Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece and many civilizations in Asia places the responsibility for all family decision making on the eldest male in the family. In this system, all males, their wives and their unmarried children are under the authority of that eldest male - whom I am going to refer as the paterfamilias from the Latin term - until he dies. At his death, the power passes to the next eldest male. In this system, marriage does nothing in terms of raising the amount of freedom for young men or women. In fact, marriage timing and partner was generally decided by the paterfamilias based on the needs of the larger family. Let's say that the family would benefit from a connection to the Smiths. The paterfamilias for the two families meet and decide that the younger daughter from Family A should marry the Smith's middle son. Neither of the people involved in the wedding are consulted for trivialities about personal preferences because neither of the people have any level of freedom over marriage choices.
Marina Sears works under the assumption that God expects children to remain under the parents' authority forever. Now, Mrs. Sears - and Geoffrey Botkin and Steven Maxwell who espouse similar beliefs - would never be so crass as to declare themselves the paterfamilias of their children and grandchildren. That would be too obvious of a power-play in the United States where people expect grown adults to show certain levels of independence from their parents. Instead, the paterfamilias wannabes support keeping children and teenagers isolated from pretty much everyone outside the immediate family so that the family members never see any other options for living during their formative years. By the time the now-adult kids are looking to marry, the kids should have internalized the family culture perfectly and live exactly like their parents want them to live.
Does it work? Well, I have no idea how well Marina Sears kept her kids under her control as they got older - but the outcome has been decidedly mixed for the Botkin and Maxwell clans.
The Botkin clan married off the three oldest sons who have had a few kids each - but the Botkin daughters are well beyond the expected age of marriage for CP/QF girls and the two youngest sons are unmarried in their late 20's. The middle son Benjamin seems to be supporting himself by composing music; the remainder of the family works for Lucas' T.Rex Arms business of producing specialized weapon accessories by CNC machine. That sounds nice enough - but nine grandkids from three sons is hardly the massive brood of Botkin grandchildren Geoffrey envisioned in his 200-year plan.
The Maxwells have certainly succeeded in that they've managed to land all four married sons in homes within 0.7 miles of Steve and Terri's home and have so far produced 17 grandchildren with one more to be born next summer. On the flip side, the families of Nathan, Joseph and John Maxwell seem to be much more relaxed in clothing styles than Steve and Terri were at the same age. (Meanwhile, Christopher Maxwell's family is now more conservative in clothing than the remaining unmarried Maxwell kids.) Similarly, Joseph and John Maxwell's families appear on the blog much less frequently than the other two married brothers and the unmarried sisters. Those two brothers might simply want less internet exposure for their children - or they might have carved out slightly more space for their families from the clan.
"The Battle of Peer Dependency" is cult-speak for "No one can question the will of the parents".
That's going to make for some fun reading, I'm sure.
*Speaking of the Maxwell Family, Anna Maxwell - wife of Christopher Maxwell - could use some thoughts and prayers right now. She developed a breast lump during her most recent pregnancy that was managed with imaging until the lump grew rapidly in her third trimester. There is a very high likelihood that the lump is cancer based on the imaging done when it began to grow. She was induced at late 36 weeks or early 37 weeks of the pregnancy and delivered a healthy baby boy. They've got six kids under the age of 8 and she's facing some combination of surgery, chemo and/or radiation. Our lives are very different - but no one ever should have to face cancer - let alone while having large, young family to care for at the same time.*
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Joyfully At Home: Chapter Ten - Part Two
Jasmine Baucham informs her readers that Chapter 10 of "Joyfully At Home" will help them shed a false view of singleness. After reading the chapter a few times, I think the false view of singleness that Jasmine is trying to puncture is the idea that a single woman is less worthy or less Christian than a married woman.
I agree wholeheartedly that the worth of a person who is female should not be based on her marital state. My bias coming to this chapter is that I'm Catholic. Vatican II has attempted to place religious, marital and single life on equal footing - but the older views still linger. For people who grew up or are of other religions, the older view is that people who REALLY loved God became priests - or the runner-up title of sister/nun if you happened to be born female - and the rest of us were always going to be second-class posers.
You can see, then, why reading the chapter in "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" where various people explained that sanctification of women didn't require marriage confused the hell out of me. Of course women didn't need marriage for sanctification; no one did! Really holy people would dedicate their lives to God and not have sex. Marriage is a backup calling for those of us with sex drives who pay for that sex drive by raising a huge family of Catholic babies.
This chapter, though, fails at killing a false view of singleness because every mention of singleness is qualified by explaining how singleness is really a planning stage for marriage.
Take this first quote where Bridget Baucham is a secondary character in her own singlehood season the needs of Voddie Baucham as predetermined by God:
Bridget Baucham's readiness for marriage is couched entirely in terms of Voddie Baucham's life path with a strange gloss of God's Plans.
Was Bridget ready to be married at age 20 herself? We have no clue.
Did she gain skills or maturity between 20-23 years of age? Got me.
Did Bridget matter to God outside of her future role as Voddie's wife? Apparently not.
Since Jasmine was living in the same home as her mother while writing this book, Jasmine's complete neglect of her mother's growth, work and maturation process as a single adult woman is stunning. Jasmine talks about her mom frequently in the book - but only as a married adult woman sharing wisdom. This oversight reinforces the theme that the story of a woman's life only begins once she's married.
The next quote starts with a standard scolding about not using single life for the Lord before it slides seamlessly into a hymn to the importance of being a wife and mother:
Marriage is beautiful.
Mothering is the fulfillment of a woman's life.
Singlehood is worthwhile if and only if women use it for the goodness of God.
Marriage and motherhood apparently glorify God without distracting women at all from God. Single women, on the other hand, need to be constantly reminded to stay on-topic about God.
That's pretty ironic since the biblical view of marriage is the polar opposite; married people are more likely to be focused on the concerns of their spouse, children and other dependents while single or widowed people are able to focus entirely on God.
This is really not helpful for changing the habit of treating unmarried women as children.
This last quote shows Jasmine Baucham's ambivalence at the idea of remaining unmarried for any period of time. I didn't grow up in this culture - but this quote makes me feel like stating that God might want you to be single is such a bad omen or so likely to draw the curse of singleness upon the speaker that Jasmine intuitively praises marriage hard to prevent being an old maid.
Good news! You might be married in nine months. As an older person, that's a terrifying statement when directed as a very young, very sheltered girl-woman
Bad news: you might have to wait NINE WHOLE YEARS! (Oh, the horrors!) I had around 9 years to wait before getting married when I was Jasmine's age; I was busy enough with working and learning that the time passed quickly and enjoyably.
As a real adult, my advice to the young unmarrieds who might be reading this is to use your time to become the best "you" you can be. You know what your strengths and weaknesses are. Work on cultivating your strengths and remedying your weaknesses rather than striving to become the best fit an unknown man and children who are not in existence.
I agree wholeheartedly that the worth of a person who is female should not be based on her marital state. My bias coming to this chapter is that I'm Catholic. Vatican II has attempted to place religious, marital and single life on equal footing - but the older views still linger. For people who grew up or are of other religions, the older view is that people who REALLY loved God became priests - or the runner-up title of sister/nun if you happened to be born female - and the rest of us were always going to be second-class posers.
You can see, then, why reading the chapter in "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" where various people explained that sanctification of women didn't require marriage confused the hell out of me. Of course women didn't need marriage for sanctification; no one did! Really holy people would dedicate their lives to God and not have sex. Marriage is a backup calling for those of us with sex drives who pay for that sex drive by raising a huge family of Catholic babies.
This chapter, though, fails at killing a false view of singleness because every mention of singleness is qualified by explaining how singleness is really a planning stage for marriage.
Take this first quote where Bridget Baucham is a secondary character in her own singlehood season the needs of Voddie Baucham as predetermined by God:
Bridget Baucham's readiness for marriage is couched entirely in terms of Voddie Baucham's life path with a strange gloss of God's Plans.
Was Bridget ready to be married at age 20 herself? We have no clue.
Did she gain skills or maturity between 20-23 years of age? Got me.
Did Bridget matter to God outside of her future role as Voddie's wife? Apparently not.
Since Jasmine was living in the same home as her mother while writing this book, Jasmine's complete neglect of her mother's growth, work and maturation process as a single adult woman is stunning. Jasmine talks about her mom frequently in the book - but only as a married adult woman sharing wisdom. This oversight reinforces the theme that the story of a woman's life only begins once she's married.
The next quote starts with a standard scolding about not using single life for the Lord before it slides seamlessly into a hymn to the importance of being a wife and mother:
Marriage is beautiful.
Mothering is the fulfillment of a woman's life.
Singlehood is worthwhile if and only if women use it for the goodness of God.
Marriage and motherhood apparently glorify God without distracting women at all from God. Single women, on the other hand, need to be constantly reminded to stay on-topic about God.
That's pretty ironic since the biblical view of marriage is the polar opposite; married people are more likely to be focused on the concerns of their spouse, children and other dependents while single or widowed people are able to focus entirely on God.
This is really not helpful for changing the habit of treating unmarried women as children.
This last quote shows Jasmine Baucham's ambivalence at the idea of remaining unmarried for any period of time. I didn't grow up in this culture - but this quote makes me feel like stating that God might want you to be single is such a bad omen or so likely to draw the curse of singleness upon the speaker that Jasmine intuitively praises marriage hard to prevent being an old maid.
Good news! You might be married in nine months. As an older person, that's a terrifying statement when directed as a very young, very sheltered girl-woman
Bad news: you might have to wait NINE WHOLE YEARS! (Oh, the horrors!) I had around 9 years to wait before getting married when I was Jasmine's age; I was busy enough with working and learning that the time passed quickly and enjoyably.
As a real adult, my advice to the young unmarrieds who might be reading this is to use your time to become the best "you" you can be. You know what your strengths and weaknesses are. Work on cultivating your strengths and remedying your weaknesses rather than striving to become the best fit an unknown man and children who are not in existence.
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
The Battle of Peer Dependency: Author's Anxiety - Part Three
We've finally settled into a pattern of winter weather here in Michigan. After months of unseasonably warm weather, we've got frozen ground and accumulating snow. I'm not a huge fan of winter - but I do prefer having all four seasons rather than waiting around hoping that the winter isn't so bad when it finally comes.
I met a guy at my job who recently moved from Florida. I cautiously asked him how he was doing with the weather change. Turns out he likes winter weather and is not a fan of the huge heat of a Florida summer. His only frustration is that Michiganders seem much less friendly than Floridians. I told him to give us a few months; the complete lack of sunlight plunges most of the people in West Michigan into at least mild seasonal affective disorder. Essentially, we all become zombies - but we perk up once the sun comes back. He laughed pretty hard and promised to reassess come summer time.
In my review of Marina Sears book "The Battle of Peer Dependency", I've discussed two stories presented in the book that show Mrs. Sears struggling with anxiety prior to her husband Jeff's untimely death in a car accident. The last anecdote of anxiety touches on the difficulties that parenting brings with (or without) anxiety.
Parenting is hard. My husband and I are always referring to a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip where 7-year-old Calvin's parents are sitting up in bed after they found that their house was robbed while they were on vacation. The overall theme is that no one would have been in such a hurry to grow up as a kid if they knew that adulthood doesn't come with a book of easy answers to follow.
For me, parenting feels like I'm taking random guesses about what the best course of action is when I don't have all the facts. In my humble opinion, our current societal assumption that how kids turn out as adults is directly tied to every tiny decision made by their parents during childhood is harmful crap. Call me cynical - but I've seen enough kids who turned out well in spite of horrible parents and a few who turned out badly in spite of really dedicated parents that I've become an advocate of "good-enough" parenting. Good-enough parenting, in my definition, is parents who do what they need to keep their kids clothed, fed, sheltered, loved, medically cared for and kept away from abusive persons. That's pretty much the basics. Don't get me wrong - encouraging your child's interests, exposing them to cultural stuff and giving them age-appropriate toys is nice if you can pull it off - but those things aren't going to matter much if the kid is in an abusive home or has an untreated medical condition, right?
With that definition in mind, see how severely Mrs. Sears overreacts to a perceived slight by someone who knows her oldest son:
Reading for facts and actions gives a story where a nursery worker decides to call the mom of one of the kids to tell her what a nice kid she has. The nursery worker loves having a kid who cuddles with her during the day. I assume the nursery worker hung up the phone and felt good about complimenting a nice mom about her sweetie-pie of a boy. Instead, a conversation that sound pretty innocuous sends Marina into a multiple hour tailspin.....
From that, Marina assumes that 1) her kid is being affectionate with a nursery worker because he's getting no attention elsewhere and 2) all of this is caused by Marina's lack of love for her son.
Marina's assumptions are not a given - and not well-based in child psychology at all. Well-adjusted young children will seek comfort in new situations through physical contact with safe adults like the nursery worker. On the flip side, some kids are fairly independent at young ages and don't want an adult in their face all the time especially in a situation where the kid feels confident and the adult figure is a safe person. Kids need space to be independent - and caregivers need time to do the scads of chores that come with small children so the system works out. I say that as the mother of an introverted kiddo. Spawn certainly likes playing with me during the day - but there are also times where he's clear that he wants to play by himself and I should make myself scarce for a bit. If I stick around too long, he'll tell me "Bye-bye. Mama clean!".
Obviously missing from the story: the point where her husband responds to her question of if Jeff thinks Marina loves Chris or not. Based on the few short stories we have about Jeff prior to his death, he sounds like a nice, stable, well-grounded guy. I cannot imagine he responded with anything except "Marina, you love Chris - and Chris loves you" but that would undermine the idea that Marina's reaction was based more on her anxiety than reality.
No, instead we get a standard CP/QF trope where Marina realizes that she's done wrong by her kid and starts loving on him all the time at home. Chris seems to like the attention - so that's nice - but there's not a part where the nursery worker calls again to tell Marina that Chris is ignoring her now...or a part where Jeff congratulates Marina on learning to love her child....so we don't have any independent verification that any of Marina's assumptions were based in reality instead of anxiety - and that's sad.
This is the end of the pre-Jeff's death anxiety motif. The next post is going to be from Chapter Three because the first paragraph of Chapter Three does a better job of pointing out the real goals for battling peer dependency. Once we've covered that, the rest of the book makes a dark, tragic sort of sense.
I met a guy at my job who recently moved from Florida. I cautiously asked him how he was doing with the weather change. Turns out he likes winter weather and is not a fan of the huge heat of a Florida summer. His only frustration is that Michiganders seem much less friendly than Floridians. I told him to give us a few months; the complete lack of sunlight plunges most of the people in West Michigan into at least mild seasonal affective disorder. Essentially, we all become zombies - but we perk up once the sun comes back. He laughed pretty hard and promised to reassess come summer time.
In my review of Marina Sears book "The Battle of Peer Dependency", I've discussed two stories presented in the book that show Mrs. Sears struggling with anxiety prior to her husband Jeff's untimely death in a car accident. The last anecdote of anxiety touches on the difficulties that parenting brings with (or without) anxiety.
Parenting is hard. My husband and I are always referring to a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip where 7-year-old Calvin's parents are sitting up in bed after they found that their house was robbed while they were on vacation. The overall theme is that no one would have been in such a hurry to grow up as a kid if they knew that adulthood doesn't come with a book of easy answers to follow.
For me, parenting feels like I'm taking random guesses about what the best course of action is when I don't have all the facts. In my humble opinion, our current societal assumption that how kids turn out as adults is directly tied to every tiny decision made by their parents during childhood is harmful crap. Call me cynical - but I've seen enough kids who turned out well in spite of horrible parents and a few who turned out badly in spite of really dedicated parents that I've become an advocate of "good-enough" parenting. Good-enough parenting, in my definition, is parents who do what they need to keep their kids clothed, fed, sheltered, loved, medically cared for and kept away from abusive persons. That's pretty much the basics. Don't get me wrong - encouraging your child's interests, exposing them to cultural stuff and giving them age-appropriate toys is nice if you can pull it off - but those things aren't going to matter much if the kid is in an abusive home or has an untreated medical condition, right?
With that definition in mind, see how severely Mrs. Sears overreacts to a perceived slight by someone who knows her oldest son:
Reading for facts and actions gives a story where a nursery worker decides to call the mom of one of the kids to tell her what a nice kid she has. The nursery worker loves having a kid who cuddles with her during the day. I assume the nursery worker hung up the phone and felt good about complimenting a nice mom about her sweetie-pie of a boy. Instead, a conversation that sound pretty innocuous sends Marina into a multiple hour tailspin.....
From that, Marina assumes that 1) her kid is being affectionate with a nursery worker because he's getting no attention elsewhere and 2) all of this is caused by Marina's lack of love for her son.
Marina's assumptions are not a given - and not well-based in child psychology at all. Well-adjusted young children will seek comfort in new situations through physical contact with safe adults like the nursery worker. On the flip side, some kids are fairly independent at young ages and don't want an adult in their face all the time especially in a situation where the kid feels confident and the adult figure is a safe person. Kids need space to be independent - and caregivers need time to do the scads of chores that come with small children so the system works out. I say that as the mother of an introverted kiddo. Spawn certainly likes playing with me during the day - but there are also times where he's clear that he wants to play by himself and I should make myself scarce for a bit. If I stick around too long, he'll tell me "Bye-bye. Mama clean!".
Obviously missing from the story: the point where her husband responds to her question of if Jeff thinks Marina loves Chris or not. Based on the few short stories we have about Jeff prior to his death, he sounds like a nice, stable, well-grounded guy. I cannot imagine he responded with anything except "Marina, you love Chris - and Chris loves you" but that would undermine the idea that Marina's reaction was based more on her anxiety than reality.
No, instead we get a standard CP/QF trope where Marina realizes that she's done wrong by her kid and starts loving on him all the time at home. Chris seems to like the attention - so that's nice - but there's not a part where the nursery worker calls again to tell Marina that Chris is ignoring her now...or a part where Jeff congratulates Marina on learning to love her child....so we don't have any independent verification that any of Marina's assumptions were based in reality instead of anxiety - and that's sad.
This is the end of the pre-Jeff's death anxiety motif. The next post is going to be from Chapter Three because the first paragraph of Chapter Three does a better job of pointing out the real goals for battling peer dependency. Once we've covered that, the rest of the book makes a dark, tragic sort of sense.
Sunday, January 12, 2020
Joyfully At Home: Chapter Ten - Part One
We had the first winter storm of 2020!
The weather forecasts were all over the place. To be fair, Western Michigan is a nightmare to do weather forecasts in. Lake Michigan is a giant chaos wrench that causes weather to do all sorts of unexpected things. The average forecast was that we'd have some amount of freezing rain - with enough accumulation to mess with power so probably between 0.25 -1 inch - followed by up to 8 inches of snow.
Looking out our windows, I think we got a solid 0.5 inches of freezing rain and maybe a scant inch of snow. We have a bunch of small branches down in the yard like we do after every storm but nothing too large. Thankfully, the freezing rain accumulated over 24 hours which gave the limbs of trees more time to bend rather than a sudden accumulation which often breaks the limbs.
I'm also enjoying my first weekend off of work in...oh....8 months. We just had a scheduling fluke that gave me a weekend off and I was happy to take it. I've enjoyed having two full days with my husband and tot. I'm using the enforced time at home due to the storm to make up some ricotta followed by making cheese and spinach pierogies. They are nice to have in the freezer since they cook up quickly and taste great.
While my milk heats, I figured it was a good time to look at Jasmine Baucham's "Joyfully At Home" Chapter 10 - 'Overcoming a False View of Singleness".
I was kind of looking forward to this chapter. Unfortunately, the chapter spends no time whatsoever discussing singleness as a useful state without immediately referencing marriage. I've picked four representative quotes to discuss over two posts to show the flavor of the chapter.
The first quote hits two points - marriage IS primary and CP/QF folks really don't read the Bible well.
Back in the "good ol' days", a woman who was unmarried was simply a woman who failed to catch a guy. Since marriage was the beginning of a woman being treated as a mature adult, a single woman had to deal with the stigma of being a perpetual child. She also was much more at risk for poverty than a married woman.
After reading that quote, I kinda miss those old days.
I miss those days because a single woman was labeled as being unfortunate - not a sinner. Jasmine just created a list of pretty brutal accusations of sinning that could be used against any SAHD who turns down a parent-lead courtship opportunity - and that's cruel.
At the same time, reading the accompanying Bible verses is amazingly funny.
Matthew 19 is a standard Jesus story. Jesus gets in an argument with the Pharisees over divorce. Jesus wins the argument by declaring that people only get divorced because they are mean and bitter (in modern parlance). The disciples reply "Man, if married life is so rough, people should stay single." Jesus replies that some people are eunuchs by birth, others are forced to be eunuchs, and some people choose to be eunuchs to follow God - and you should be in the third group if you REALLY love God.
So - this is the first Gospel quote used in a CP/QF book - and it says that we shouldn't get married. I think we've hit the reason that CP/QF is often described as a Pauline cult rather than Christians.
The quote from 1 Corinthians is about how married women prioritize husbands over God while unmarried women prioritize God. That's a great quote about the value of singleness - but the quote implies that the verse supports marriage. In my humble opinion, the seventh chapter of 1 Corinthians could be summarized as "Peeps, the world is ending. SOON. Marry or don't marry - but seriously, the END IS NEAR so do whatever will keep you out of sin."
Good old Titus 2. Titus 2 isn't a wholehearted endorsement of marriage for the sake of sanctification - regardless of what CP/QF folks try to say. The Letter makes it clear that the community has a lot of widows of various ages to support and is struggling mightily to do so. Titus 2 tells the widows who are young enough to have children to remarry and have children so that the church doesn't have to directly support them. Older widows are told to stop drinking too much, stop gossiping and help out the young women because raising children is a lot of work.. It's a letter I enjoy for the sheer humanity of the people involved - but it's hardly a ringing endorsement of marriage for any reason except financial ones.
Jasmine would never ever tell young women to become better people for any other reason than the please the Lord - but pssst! Young guys find it super-attractive when young women are bettering themselves for the Lord! Self-improvement is an aphrodisiac for Godly men - especially in young Godly women who don't seem attracted to them at all!
That's really rather twisted.
Next up is two more quotes about how singleness is great - but marriage is better!
The weather forecasts were all over the place. To be fair, Western Michigan is a nightmare to do weather forecasts in. Lake Michigan is a giant chaos wrench that causes weather to do all sorts of unexpected things. The average forecast was that we'd have some amount of freezing rain - with enough accumulation to mess with power so probably between 0.25 -1 inch - followed by up to 8 inches of snow.
Looking out our windows, I think we got a solid 0.5 inches of freezing rain and maybe a scant inch of snow. We have a bunch of small branches down in the yard like we do after every storm but nothing too large. Thankfully, the freezing rain accumulated over 24 hours which gave the limbs of trees more time to bend rather than a sudden accumulation which often breaks the limbs.
I'm also enjoying my first weekend off of work in...oh....8 months. We just had a scheduling fluke that gave me a weekend off and I was happy to take it. I've enjoyed having two full days with my husband and tot. I'm using the enforced time at home due to the storm to make up some ricotta followed by making cheese and spinach pierogies. They are nice to have in the freezer since they cook up quickly and taste great.
While my milk heats, I figured it was a good time to look at Jasmine Baucham's "Joyfully At Home" Chapter 10 - 'Overcoming a False View of Singleness".
I was kind of looking forward to this chapter. Unfortunately, the chapter spends no time whatsoever discussing singleness as a useful state without immediately referencing marriage. I've picked four representative quotes to discuss over two posts to show the flavor of the chapter.
The first quote hits two points - marriage IS primary and CP/QF folks really don't read the Bible well.
Back in the "good ol' days", a woman who was unmarried was simply a woman who failed to catch a guy. Since marriage was the beginning of a woman being treated as a mature adult, a single woman had to deal with the stigma of being a perpetual child. She also was much more at risk for poverty than a married woman.
After reading that quote, I kinda miss those old days.
I miss those days because a single woman was labeled as being unfortunate - not a sinner. Jasmine just created a list of pretty brutal accusations of sinning that could be used against any SAHD who turns down a parent-lead courtship opportunity - and that's cruel.
At the same time, reading the accompanying Bible verses is amazingly funny.
Matthew 19 is a standard Jesus story. Jesus gets in an argument with the Pharisees over divorce. Jesus wins the argument by declaring that people only get divorced because they are mean and bitter (in modern parlance). The disciples reply "Man, if married life is so rough, people should stay single." Jesus replies that some people are eunuchs by birth, others are forced to be eunuchs, and some people choose to be eunuchs to follow God - and you should be in the third group if you REALLY love God.
So - this is the first Gospel quote used in a CP/QF book - and it says that we shouldn't get married. I think we've hit the reason that CP/QF is often described as a Pauline cult rather than Christians.
The quote from 1 Corinthians is about how married women prioritize husbands over God while unmarried women prioritize God. That's a great quote about the value of singleness - but the quote implies that the verse supports marriage. In my humble opinion, the seventh chapter of 1 Corinthians could be summarized as "Peeps, the world is ending. SOON. Marry or don't marry - but seriously, the END IS NEAR so do whatever will keep you out of sin."
Good old Titus 2. Titus 2 isn't a wholehearted endorsement of marriage for the sake of sanctification - regardless of what CP/QF folks try to say. The Letter makes it clear that the community has a lot of widows of various ages to support and is struggling mightily to do so. Titus 2 tells the widows who are young enough to have children to remarry and have children so that the church doesn't have to directly support them. Older widows are told to stop drinking too much, stop gossiping and help out the young women because raising children is a lot of work.. It's a letter I enjoy for the sheer humanity of the people involved - but it's hardly a ringing endorsement of marriage for any reason except financial ones.
Jasmine would never ever tell young women to become better people for any other reason than the please the Lord - but pssst! Young guys find it super-attractive when young women are bettering themselves for the Lord! Self-improvement is an aphrodisiac for Godly men - especially in young Godly women who don't seem attracted to them at all!
That's really rather twisted.
Next up is two more quotes about how singleness is great - but marriage is better!
Tuesday, January 7, 2020
The Battle of Peer Dependency: Author's Anxiety - Part Two
Yipee! We have a rare sunny day during the winter in Michigan!
My energy level feels a million times higher when I have access to bright sunshine instead of a uniformly gray sky. Plus, it was my son's first day back at preschool after his winter break. I enjoyed having him at home (especially once I found that giving him french toast in the morning greatly cut down on hangry whining before lunch), but I missed having two hours of toddler-free time a day. I celebrated his first day back with a nice, long, cold walk.
My son is celebrating being home by trying to surreptitiously type on the keyboard and using his play stethoscope to listen to the back of my laptop's monitor.
I'm discussing examples of Marina Sears' pre-existing anxiety disorder that she describes in "The Battle of Peer Dependency". In the first chapter of the book, Marina Sears describes the tragic death of her husband in a freak car accident. Traumatic life events like that can predispose a person to anxiety, but Marina also shares three stories of times where she seemed to be struggling with an anxiety disorder prior to Jeff's death.
Since the Sears daughter Camille was a year old when Jeff died, this story must have happened in the year prior to Jeff's death. At this point, the Sears lived in a fairly remote area - hence the PO Box story in the last installment - while Jeff worked in the oil fields.
The hardest part for people who don't have anxiety to understand is how badly an anxiety attack scrambles a person's ability to think logically about a situation. This example demonstrates how out-of-whack a person's line of thought is when Marina decides that the ONLY solution to getting rid of a scorpion is for Jeff to drive for 1 hour and 15 minutes back home, kill the scorpion, then either miss the rest of his shift or drive 1 hour and 15 minutes back to the oil fields again.
If I'm doing the math right, following Marina's frantic request would lead to 5 hours of driving to and from the oil fields in a day. To kill a smallish arachnid.
For all that I'm a science person, I'm not a huge fan of insects. I have very little experience with scorpions and I would be more than a bit freaked out if I found one. After taking a few deep breaths, though, I can think of a few better options than making Jeff drive home. My short list:
My energy level feels a million times higher when I have access to bright sunshine instead of a uniformly gray sky. Plus, it was my son's first day back at preschool after his winter break. I enjoyed having him at home (especially once I found that giving him french toast in the morning greatly cut down on hangry whining before lunch), but I missed having two hours of toddler-free time a day. I celebrated his first day back with a nice, long, cold walk.
My son is celebrating being home by trying to surreptitiously type on the keyboard and using his play stethoscope to listen to the back of my laptop's monitor.
I'm discussing examples of Marina Sears' pre-existing anxiety disorder that she describes in "The Battle of Peer Dependency". In the first chapter of the book, Marina Sears describes the tragic death of her husband in a freak car accident. Traumatic life events like that can predispose a person to anxiety, but Marina also shares three stories of times where she seemed to be struggling with an anxiety disorder prior to Jeff's death.
Since the Sears daughter Camille was a year old when Jeff died, this story must have happened in the year prior to Jeff's death. At this point, the Sears lived in a fairly remote area - hence the PO Box story in the last installment - while Jeff worked in the oil fields.
The hardest part for people who don't have anxiety to understand is how badly an anxiety attack scrambles a person's ability to think logically about a situation. This example demonstrates how out-of-whack a person's line of thought is when Marina decides that the ONLY solution to getting rid of a scorpion is for Jeff to drive for 1 hour and 15 minutes back home, kill the scorpion, then either miss the rest of his shift or drive 1 hour and 15 minutes back to the oil fields again.
If I'm doing the math right, following Marina's frantic request would lead to 5 hours of driving to and from the oil fields in a day. To kill a smallish arachnid.
For all that I'm a science person, I'm not a huge fan of insects. I have very little experience with scorpions and I would be more than a bit freaked out if I found one. After taking a few deep breaths, though, I can think of a few better options than making Jeff drive home. My short list:
- Put on shoes with heavier soles before crushing scorpion.
- Put the cup outside tipped over and let the scorpion go free.
- Let one of two little boys in the family put on "stomping boots" and crush the scorpion.
- Ask the neighbor to kill the scorpion.
- Name it and declare it the family mascot.
Anxiety survivor tip: If your response to a single, small arachnid is more in line with a normal person would do when presented with a house fire, please seek professional help. This is not a good way to live.
Friday, January 3, 2020
The Battle of Peer Dependency: Author's Anxiety - Part One
My blog has primarily focused on books that aim to control young women through obsessive control of their sexuality and career paths. I focused on emotional purity writings (emo-pure) and stay-at-home daughterhood (SAHD) mainly because when I started reviewing Debi Pearl's "Preparing To Be a Helpmeet" I was a newlywed with an established career in education. I felt that I had a pretty solid grounding in romantic relationships, male-female relationships and transitioning from a dependent child to a financially independent adult.
I didn't delve much into child rearing manuals (outside of home-based education) because I didn't have a kid. I'd been around kids much of my life and felt confident when I read manuals about how to avoid terrible advice - but I didn't have any personal parenting experience.
Well, a lot has changed in the last seven years. I'm still a married woman with a career - and I'm also the mom of a 3 year old who has brought a unique and fascinating set of adventures with him.
Net outcome: I'm over my shyness about blasting the crap-tastically bad parenting advice given out by CP/QF parents.
I'm gearing up to review two books on the dangers of "peer dependency". The first book is "The Battle for Peer Dependency" by Marina Sears followed by the Maxwell's book "Keeping Your Children's Hearts". As I've mentioned before, I grew up outside of CP/QF and only encountered it glancingly as an adult prior to learning more on the internet to try and help students of mine who were dumped into the public school system in their late teens. Because of that, I had no bloody clue what the term "peer dependency" meant - and reading "The Battle of Peer Dependency" will leave you clueless until the third chapter so that was fun.
For other outsiders, the term 'peer dependency' in the society means the desire that people have to be around people their own age outside of their siblings. In the larger society, this is viewed as a normal, age-appropriate developmental stage that starts in toddlerhood. In fact, my three-year old has just started showing increased interest towards other little kids and occasionally makes attempts to play cooperatively! (I'm just really proud of my little guy).
I digress.
Practically, the term has some deeper, more sinister connotations surrounding parental control. In the ideal CP/QF family the patriarch gets his goals for the entire family from God. The goals are clear, Godly, and intergenerational. The Botkins have a plan to outbreed us heathens. The Maxwells are going to support large families in computer-based self-taught careers AND never live farther than 1 mile from Steven and Terri's house. The Duggars pretty much run the same gig as the Maxwells but they specialize in home rentals and used cars.
The danger of peers is that being around other families lets the kids see that there are different ways to live - and that could lead to sinful deviations from the plan. The Duggars have Josh David who refused to follow the Duggar no-touch courtship rules (eek!) and works independently (so much harder for his dad to control him that way....). The Maxwells have Christopher who wanted to become an EMT (oh, the horrors!) and John whose fiancee announced their engagement online prior to the wedding (Dunno if they will ever forgive Chelsy for that).
So, yeah. Fighting peer dependency is essentially using emotional, religious, and/or logistical manipulation of your children to keep them firmly enmeshed in their family of origin for the life length of the parents.
Sounds like fun! *shudders*
Moving specifically into "The Battle for Peer Dependency", the first idea that I wanted to explore is my belief that part of Mrs. Sears motivation for focusing on eliminating peer dependency is a sad attempt to control her personal anxiety disorder.
I struggled with generalized anxiety disorder from when I was 4 until I was in my mid-twenties.
My younger brother David died unexpectedly and suddenly just before his first birthday - and I became an anxious wreck. I believed wholeheartedly that my parents and the doctors did everything humanly possible to save my brother - and he still died. That meant that all the good intentions in the world meant absolutely nothing. We were all at the mercy of a cruel, capricious and random world that killed people willy-nilly.
Over the years, I kept my anxiety in check by being an overachiever and keeping negative emotions bottled up. I was very, very good at both things - and far too young to realize that I was becoming a ticking-time bomb for mental illness.
When I moved away to college, my anxiety exploded. We had moved across Michigan a few months before my brother died so moving again brought up insane levels of anxiety that something really, really bad was going to happen. After a few weeks at college, I was diagnosed with depression and started on medication and seeing a counselor. Unfortunately, the first SSRI I received worked a bit for the depression and actually ratchet my anxiety even higher.
Compounding the problem was the fact that anxiety had been a part of my life for so long that I didn't know that I was anxious - so no one was really cued in on the fact that my anxiety was driving my depression rather than vice versa.
A few weeks later, I was burnt-out, exhausted and actively suicidal. I informed my counselor that she needed to help me get in-patient care now because I could stop myself from attempting suicide right now - but I was so exhausted that I might not be able to next time....or the next time....or the next time.
I was hospitalized twice over three weeks while doctors figured out a medicine regiment that worked for me. The absolute game changer was being prescribed Klonopin for the first time. For the first time that I could remember, I felt what 0 out of 10 on an anxiety scale felt like. Plus, anxiety was draining all of my energy. With an anti-anxiety drug, I could focus on getting my eating, sleeping and exercising habits back to normal and start learning how to treat depression. The second game changer was determining that the first SSRI was causing my suicidal ideations - and getting off of that made life much more workable.
Learning how to treat my anxiety was the overarching theme of my college and early teaching years. It was a long slog - but I've come out the far side much more able to care for myself than I ever was before.
I bring this up because there are three stories in the book from before the tragic death of Marina's husband that ring all sorts of "Hello, anxiety my old friend" bells. Here's one:
When you read for facts, the car ride sounds a lot like an average snowy Thursday in Idaho or one of those rare icy days in Texas. Jeff, Marina and the kids drove to the PO box. The roads were slushy and the car lost traction a few times but Jeff was able to steer through it.
If you read for emotion, Jeff Sears risked his entire family's life by driving at breakneck speeds down icy roads on bald tires while playing chicken with semi-trucks! At any second, the entire family could be annihilated in a massive wreck!
The red flag for anxiety - Marina's level of anxiety is so high that she finds relief by imagining a scenario where she can die without hurting her family at all since no one will feel any pain if they are all killed instantly.
We've got two more anxiety stories left for later posts.
I didn't delve much into child rearing manuals (outside of home-based education) because I didn't have a kid. I'd been around kids much of my life and felt confident when I read manuals about how to avoid terrible advice - but I didn't have any personal parenting experience.
Well, a lot has changed in the last seven years. I'm still a married woman with a career - and I'm also the mom of a 3 year old who has brought a unique and fascinating set of adventures with him.
Net outcome: I'm over my shyness about blasting the crap-tastically bad parenting advice given out by CP/QF parents.
I'm gearing up to review two books on the dangers of "peer dependency". The first book is "The Battle for Peer Dependency" by Marina Sears followed by the Maxwell's book "Keeping Your Children's Hearts". As I've mentioned before, I grew up outside of CP/QF and only encountered it glancingly as an adult prior to learning more on the internet to try and help students of mine who were dumped into the public school system in their late teens. Because of that, I had no bloody clue what the term "peer dependency" meant - and reading "The Battle of Peer Dependency" will leave you clueless until the third chapter so that was fun.
For other outsiders, the term 'peer dependency' in the society means the desire that people have to be around people their own age outside of their siblings. In the larger society, this is viewed as a normal, age-appropriate developmental stage that starts in toddlerhood. In fact, my three-year old has just started showing increased interest towards other little kids and occasionally makes attempts to play cooperatively! (I'm just really proud of my little guy).
I digress.
Practically, the term has some deeper, more sinister connotations surrounding parental control. In the ideal CP/QF family the patriarch gets his goals for the entire family from God. The goals are clear, Godly, and intergenerational. The Botkins have a plan to outbreed us heathens. The Maxwells are going to support large families in computer-based self-taught careers AND never live farther than 1 mile from Steven and Terri's house. The Duggars pretty much run the same gig as the Maxwells but they specialize in home rentals and used cars.
The danger of peers is that being around other families lets the kids see that there are different ways to live - and that could lead to sinful deviations from the plan. The Duggars have Josh David who refused to follow the Duggar no-touch courtship rules (eek!) and works independently (so much harder for his dad to control him that way....). The Maxwells have Christopher who wanted to become an EMT (oh, the horrors!) and John whose fiancee announced their engagement online prior to the wedding (Dunno if they will ever forgive Chelsy for that).
So, yeah. Fighting peer dependency is essentially using emotional, religious, and/or logistical manipulation of your children to keep them firmly enmeshed in their family of origin for the life length of the parents.
Sounds like fun! *shudders*
Moving specifically into "The Battle for Peer Dependency", the first idea that I wanted to explore is my belief that part of Mrs. Sears motivation for focusing on eliminating peer dependency is a sad attempt to control her personal anxiety disorder.
I struggled with generalized anxiety disorder from when I was 4 until I was in my mid-twenties.
My younger brother David died unexpectedly and suddenly just before his first birthday - and I became an anxious wreck. I believed wholeheartedly that my parents and the doctors did everything humanly possible to save my brother - and he still died. That meant that all the good intentions in the world meant absolutely nothing. We were all at the mercy of a cruel, capricious and random world that killed people willy-nilly.
Over the years, I kept my anxiety in check by being an overachiever and keeping negative emotions bottled up. I was very, very good at both things - and far too young to realize that I was becoming a ticking-time bomb for mental illness.
When I moved away to college, my anxiety exploded. We had moved across Michigan a few months before my brother died so moving again brought up insane levels of anxiety that something really, really bad was going to happen. After a few weeks at college, I was diagnosed with depression and started on medication and seeing a counselor. Unfortunately, the first SSRI I received worked a bit for the depression and actually ratchet my anxiety even higher.
Compounding the problem was the fact that anxiety had been a part of my life for so long that I didn't know that I was anxious - so no one was really cued in on the fact that my anxiety was driving my depression rather than vice versa.
A few weeks later, I was burnt-out, exhausted and actively suicidal. I informed my counselor that she needed to help me get in-patient care now because I could stop myself from attempting suicide right now - but I was so exhausted that I might not be able to next time....or the next time....or the next time.
I was hospitalized twice over three weeks while doctors figured out a medicine regiment that worked for me. The absolute game changer was being prescribed Klonopin for the first time. For the first time that I could remember, I felt what 0 out of 10 on an anxiety scale felt like. Plus, anxiety was draining all of my energy. With an anti-anxiety drug, I could focus on getting my eating, sleeping and exercising habits back to normal and start learning how to treat depression. The second game changer was determining that the first SSRI was causing my suicidal ideations - and getting off of that made life much more workable.
Learning how to treat my anxiety was the overarching theme of my college and early teaching years. It was a long slog - but I've come out the far side much more able to care for myself than I ever was before.
I bring this up because there are three stories in the book from before the tragic death of Marina's husband that ring all sorts of "Hello, anxiety my old friend" bells. Here's one:
When you read for facts, the car ride sounds a lot like an average snowy Thursday in Idaho or one of those rare icy days in Texas. Jeff, Marina and the kids drove to the PO box. The roads were slushy and the car lost traction a few times but Jeff was able to steer through it.
If you read for emotion, Jeff Sears risked his entire family's life by driving at breakneck speeds down icy roads on bald tires while playing chicken with semi-trucks! At any second, the entire family could be annihilated in a massive wreck!
The red flag for anxiety - Marina's level of anxiety is so high that she finds relief by imagining a scenario where she can die without hurting her family at all since no one will feel any pain if they are all killed instantly.
We've got two more anxiety stories left for later posts.
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
Joyfully At Home: Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine in Jasmine Baucham's "Joyfully At Home" teaches young women how to overcome a false view of self. Practically, I think people would need a whole lot more support and action to do that than reading a short chapter in a self-help book written by a 19 year old.
I'm probably attacking the idea from the wrong angle, though, since I work on the theory that God makes men and women with certain skills and strengths independent of gender. From that, I believe that women should not be limited to one uniform vocational track of wife-mother. Many women will marry and quite a few will be mothers - but not every woman is called to be a wife or mother. Nor do I think that children require two parents. The vast majority of women will work in the larger society as a worker at some point in their lives - and many of us do that while being excellent wives and mothers.
Turns out the chapter is more simple than that. The "false view of self" is the crazy idea that women have a right to marry a man whose personality complements their strengths and flaws. Instead, a woman is supposed to pick a man who will sanctify her by having a marriage where the two people grate on each other.
Take this gem:
Well, yeah.
In a egalitarian marriage, partners will grow and change together hopefully because both people are allowed to ask for changes they need from their partner to be happy. Yes, it is important for spouses to be roughly aligned in personality traits - but both people have room to grow over time.
In CP/QF land, women are supposed to be subservient to their husbands. All the time. Ideally, without spending too much time forcing their husbands to explain the rationale behind their decisions. The husband is a priest, prophet, protector and provider, after all. You can't expect him to be an explainer as well. *rolls eyes*
Since a young woman has exactly once chance to decide who she's being yoked to for the rest of her life, I feel that she should make that decision based on who she is and what is a sensible choice based on her personality.
Here's a tiny example from my life. I prefer to socialize outside my home and have my home be a space for rest, relaxation and family life. I do have close friends and family over - but the thought of hosting a large party out of my home sounds hellish to me. Large parties, in my humble opinion, are the reason community and church halls were created.
Can you imagine how stressful being married to a man who thrives on in-home entertaining would be for me? Notice: this is just a minor personal preference without any sin or angst attached - but I would be exhausted and frazzled if our home was expected to be party central for local families.
Apparently, women need to pre-conform themselves to their future husband - without asking if the change the woman is making in herself is sensible or even Christian:
Interestingly, Christianity only cautions against extreme emotions that warp our reactions to others. Believers are cautioned against wrath - anger that seeks to hurt and destroy. Lust - sexual attraction that objectifies the other person. Greed - wanting more for the sake of possession. Envy - malicious desire for what another person has. Pride - an inability to look at self clearly. Sloth - failure to act to help self or others. Gluttony - overconsumption that weakens self or others.
I just have difficulty believing that 19-year old Jasmine was cherishing envy against her friends who married. She wrote a book while helping with her pile of younger brothers and attending college online so I feel like sloth is probably not a huge issue with her. Being lustful requires feeling sexual desire while actively objectifying the other person - and we've covered that she freaked out when around guys she was attracted to so that's out. I just can't buy that she was massively cherishing problematic emotions.
Perfectionism is kind of related to pride - but perfectionism is rooted more in anxiety than it is in overly high self-worth. I've struggled with perfectionism in my life especially in academic pursuits and for me the fear is that I will somehow fail the expectations that another person has about me if I do less than perfect. Over the years, I learned that 1) my expectations of what other people expect is totally out of whack and 2) if someone's expectations are that high, I need to get out of that situation for my own sanity.
Oh, Lord. Don't pray for the patience to handle being married to a visionary man of the Debi Pearl type. That's a ragingly unfair marriage where the husband gets to act like a child by doing all the "fun" work of indulging dreams without weighing the downsides of the newest plan. Meanwhile, his wife is trapped trying to make-do with an ever-increasing brood of children, diminishing resources, and the exhaustion of being the 'bad guy' when reality intrudes on the newest dream.
*lifts jaw off keyboard*
Girl, slow your roll!
Do not marry a dude 6 months after you meet him!
No! Bad life choice! No!
See, this is what you miss when you don't watch 20/20 or Dateline or any other voyeuristic crime TV shows. "Yeah, she fell hard and fast for that dude she met. It was love at first sight! They got married so fast. Too bad she missed ( his criminal record / history of wives dying suspiciously / the fact he has 2 other families living/ that his history was a lie/ his blinding rages) until it was too late" is pretty much the stock story told by the mom/sister/best friend of the dead woman.
Don't forget that you can be miserable without marrying a criminal sociopath. CP/QF type love the Book of Proverbs. Let's remember a proverb shared in societies with less patriarchal marriage types: Marry in haste; repent at leisure.
Did Jasmine know that at 19? Nah - that's prime time for young people marrying quickly and setting up a home together. It takes a few years after that to watch marriages fall apart and end in divorce - or worse - solidify into two very unhappy people trapped together.
Really, the nicest thing I can say about this chapter is that it is short. We're done with this chapter in one installment - and that's nice!
I'm probably attacking the idea from the wrong angle, though, since I work on the theory that God makes men and women with certain skills and strengths independent of gender. From that, I believe that women should not be limited to one uniform vocational track of wife-mother. Many women will marry and quite a few will be mothers - but not every woman is called to be a wife or mother. Nor do I think that children require two parents. The vast majority of women will work in the larger society as a worker at some point in their lives - and many of us do that while being excellent wives and mothers.
Turns out the chapter is more simple than that. The "false view of self" is the crazy idea that women have a right to marry a man whose personality complements their strengths and flaws. Instead, a woman is supposed to pick a man who will sanctify her by having a marriage where the two people grate on each other.
Take this gem:
Well, yeah.
In a egalitarian marriage, partners will grow and change together hopefully because both people are allowed to ask for changes they need from their partner to be happy. Yes, it is important for spouses to be roughly aligned in personality traits - but both people have room to grow over time.
In CP/QF land, women are supposed to be subservient to their husbands. All the time. Ideally, without spending too much time forcing their husbands to explain the rationale behind their decisions. The husband is a priest, prophet, protector and provider, after all. You can't expect him to be an explainer as well. *rolls eyes*
Since a young woman has exactly once chance to decide who she's being yoked to for the rest of her life, I feel that she should make that decision based on who she is and what is a sensible choice based on her personality.
Here's a tiny example from my life. I prefer to socialize outside my home and have my home be a space for rest, relaxation and family life. I do have close friends and family over - but the thought of hosting a large party out of my home sounds hellish to me. Large parties, in my humble opinion, are the reason community and church halls were created.
Can you imagine how stressful being married to a man who thrives on in-home entertaining would be for me? Notice: this is just a minor personal preference without any sin or angst attached - but I would be exhausted and frazzled if our home was expected to be party central for local families.
Apparently, women need to pre-conform themselves to their future husband - without asking if the change the woman is making in herself is sensible or even Christian:
Interestingly, Christianity only cautions against extreme emotions that warp our reactions to others. Believers are cautioned against wrath - anger that seeks to hurt and destroy. Lust - sexual attraction that objectifies the other person. Greed - wanting more for the sake of possession. Envy - malicious desire for what another person has. Pride - an inability to look at self clearly. Sloth - failure to act to help self or others. Gluttony - overconsumption that weakens self or others.
I just have difficulty believing that 19-year old Jasmine was cherishing envy against her friends who married. She wrote a book while helping with her pile of younger brothers and attending college online so I feel like sloth is probably not a huge issue with her. Being lustful requires feeling sexual desire while actively objectifying the other person - and we've covered that she freaked out when around guys she was attracted to so that's out. I just can't buy that she was massively cherishing problematic emotions.
Perfectionism is kind of related to pride - but perfectionism is rooted more in anxiety than it is in overly high self-worth. I've struggled with perfectionism in my life especially in academic pursuits and for me the fear is that I will somehow fail the expectations that another person has about me if I do less than perfect. Over the years, I learned that 1) my expectations of what other people expect is totally out of whack and 2) if someone's expectations are that high, I need to get out of that situation for my own sanity.
Oh, Lord. Don't pray for the patience to handle being married to a visionary man of the Debi Pearl type. That's a ragingly unfair marriage where the husband gets to act like a child by doing all the "fun" work of indulging dreams without weighing the downsides of the newest plan. Meanwhile, his wife is trapped trying to make-do with an ever-increasing brood of children, diminishing resources, and the exhaustion of being the 'bad guy' when reality intrudes on the newest dream.
*lifts jaw off keyboard*
Girl, slow your roll!
Do not marry a dude 6 months after you meet him!
No! Bad life choice! No!
See, this is what you miss when you don't watch 20/20 or Dateline or any other voyeuristic crime TV shows. "Yeah, she fell hard and fast for that dude she met. It was love at first sight! They got married so fast. Too bad she missed ( his criminal record / history of wives dying suspiciously / the fact he has 2 other families living/ that his history was a lie/ his blinding rages) until it was too late" is pretty much the stock story told by the mom/sister/best friend of the dead woman.
Don't forget that you can be miserable without marrying a criminal sociopath. CP/QF type love the Book of Proverbs. Let's remember a proverb shared in societies with less patriarchal marriage types: Marry in haste; repent at leisure.
Did Jasmine know that at 19? Nah - that's prime time for young people marrying quickly and setting up a home together. It takes a few years after that to watch marriages fall apart and end in divorce - or worse - solidify into two very unhappy people trapped together.
Really, the nicest thing I can say about this chapter is that it is short. We're done with this chapter in one installment - and that's nice!
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