It's been a while since I wrote about Marina Sears' "The Battle Of Peer Dependence" so I had to look back at my notes about the main issues I had with this chapter. In this section, Marina Sears manages to combine a pet peeve of mine about bad homeschooling with her ongoing obsession with isolating her children from peers.
Let me place this section in the timeline of the Sears family. Jeff died when his children were 7 years, 5 years, one year and not born yet. Marina and the kids lived in the same house in the southwest USA for 14 months until that house sold. The family moved to Montana to live with Marina's parents. The Sears lived with Marina's parents for a year during which Marina started homeschooling her kids who were roughly aged 9 years, 7 years, 3 years and a toddler. At the end of the year, Marina moved her family back to Texas when the kids were 10, 8, 4 and two years old. In that first year, Marina relied heavily on God to determine the correct educational and moral goals for her kids. (I'm still a bit lost on the details of that arrangement; I'm assuming it's a cover for a woman making decisions on her own in the absence of a male authority).
Marina needs to move her family at the end of the first year back in Texas:
*bom-bom-baaammmm*
I've trimmed the quotes so far to cut out the melodramatic twist endings where "everything is going well for our family" turns into "really bad shit was just around the corner!!!!!" I like a good twist as well as the next person - but once a chapter at most rather than twice per page.
I digress.
One of the reasons traditional schooling has been so popular across the world is the benefits of specialization. When I taught, I had four subjects that I taught yearly. Because of that repetition, I was able to reuse lessons that worked quickly and spend my rare moments of planning time to fine-tune or completely redo lessons that didn't work as well as I wanted. Each year, my curriculum became more solid and more effective for my students because I was able to focus on a small subset of the curricula presented to any one student.
Homeschooling parents are at a disadvantage by comparison because they have to create curricula for four disparate subjects (math, science, language arts, and social studies) along with any elective subjects (foreign languages, art, music, physical education, health etc., ) and religious training as they see fit for one kid. When I was a public school teacher, my course load of four subjects was rare and considered grueling; most secondary teachers have 1-2. A homeschooling parent has at least five cores plus most have at least one or two electives. That's six courses for one kid - and Marina had an 11 year old, a 9 year old and a five year old in school with a three year old under foot! I can't even imagine how much time planning curriculum would take if she did it all herself.
How do good homeschooling parents deal? The same way that traditional school teachers do - by focusing on teaching the areas they are good at while using curricula created by parents or teachers who are skilled in other subjects. I regret that I was embarrassed to ask other teachers for their lesson plans when I started teaching. I assumed that those other teachers had created their lessons from scratch and would view me as lazy or unskilled if I asked for the plans. As I matured as a teacher - and started creating lesson plans that were unique and working for my students - I realized that experienced teachers love giving lesson plans to other teachers. For the experienced teacher, it's a good way to have someone else test the lesson and tweak it. Personally, I remembered how exhausting and overwhelmed the first years of teaching were and anything I could do to make it easier for new teachers was well worth it.
For most homeschooling parents, having other homeschooling parents to bounce ideas off of and trade lesson plans with would be a huge benefit. The fact that Marina Sears' children would be around other kids, though, is too much for Mrs. Sears to tolerate for long:
*slow claps*
Imagine how much more awesome gossiping would be if we all could wrap our normal disagreements in such noble sentiments!
Mrs. Sears never mentions what the actual precipitating issue was - but we can write off certain tricky issues. The other families couldn't have been involved in 'sexual immorality' or drugs of any kind; Mrs. Sears would have been all over that as a horror story. Similarly, a theological rift would have brought on a detailed explanation on how the other side had gone over to the devil.
No, we're looking at something really, really minor.
Maybe the girls wear skirts that are marginally shorter than Marina liked. The boys play a war-style game that the Sears kids were not supposed to like, perhaps.
Or, maybe, the kids had the audacity to enjoy being around their friends as much as they liked being around their family!
That could rapidly turn into a negative cycle in a possessive parent. The kids go to the Smith's house and enjoy the simple pleasure of being around new people. The parent gets jealous of the fact that the kid enjoy the other family and lock down the family harder. With enforced isolation, the kids react even more excitedly when they are allowed to go around other families - and the cycle begins again.
Thanks to COVID-19, I think I finally understand what life was like for kids in extremely sheltered families; getting out around other people feels amazing even though there is an overhanging fear of something bad happening because of being around them. My experience was caused by a dangerous respiratory virus. For kids in CP/QF families, the experience is caused by the emotional needs of their family.
That's a shitty way to raise kids.
Friday, July 17, 2020
Wednesday, July 8, 2020
Maxwell Sanity: When Jesse Used His Marriage to Leave the MotherShip!
The Maxwells have eight kids - Nathan, Christopher, Sarah, Joseph, Anna, John, Jesse and Mary.
As of April this year, all three girls were unmarried and living at home with their parents and their youngest brother Jesse. The other four brothers were married and living nearby. Nathan and Christopher lived in homes within direct sight of the Main Maxwell home. Joseph and John owned homes located within a few lots of each other 0.7 miles away from the rest of the family. Jesse owned a home across the street from John and Joseph - but since he was unmarried - he continued to live at home and rented the house out.
There had been some internet rumors of Jesse being engaged. The Maxwells used to announce engagements on their website - but after Christopher and Joseph each had an engagement called off - the Maxwells started maintaining radio silence prior to weddings. (They grudgingly acknowledged John's engagement online after Chelsy's family announced the engagement.) The only concern the internet had was that Jesse's fiancee was quite young. She turned twenty a few weeks before her wedding.
Actually, there was one other issue. Her name was Anna Craig - which means that the family would need to figure out a way to differentiate one more Anna on their blog from daughter Anna and Christopher's wife Anna.
I digress.
Then in March, Maxwell watchers got a new surprise. Jesse Maxwell sold his house - and there was radio silence about that on the blog - so presumably he wasn't swapping houses for one closer to his parents.
Personally, I was hoping that he was going to relocate to Ohio so his wife would be closer to her family while he'd be farther from his family. Now, I live about a mile from my husband's parents, but I married at 30 rather than twenty - and I am very consistent on setting boundaries. The Maxwells seem to be rather more enmeshed than is good for a young wife to deal with so I was hoping for a relocation to a different state. In case you think I'm being overly dramatic, take a look at the photos (released after the wedding) of Jesse packing up his stuff followed by a whole family prayer service with blessings. I was totally convinced at this point that Jesse was going to be a Buckeye!
What we got is even better - Jesse and Anna Maxwell seem to be doing their own thing while killing a few sacred Maxwell cows for good measure.
Remember the tearful blessings? Jesse moved to Kansas City, KS - which is a 30-40 minute drive in good weather. The newlyweds can literally drive to see the Maxwells daily; I had a longer commute to my teaching job after I married my husband.
Silly me - I'm grounding this in my experiences. Jesse moved 400 times farther away than any other Maxwell has before! Of course, Christopher's Anna moved from Washington to Kansas while John's Chelsy moved from Iowa - so the sisters-in-law might be struggling to keep a straight face while the original Maxwells suffer from separation anxiety.
Instead of safely ensconcing his new wife in Maxwell-Land, Jesse Maxwell is now living in an apartment! For most young newlyweds in the US, apartment living is normal. For the Maxwells, this is straight-up heresy. The Maxwells have sold a book called "Buying a House Debt-Free: Equipping Your Son" based on the fact that Maxwell Men earn enough money prior to marriage to buy a house and are able to raise huge families with less stress because they don't have a mortgage payment and don't pay rent. Living in an apartment for a year is essentially a giant "Nope" to a huge cornerstone of Maxwellian thought.
Lest we think Jesse will return to Leavenworth, he's stated that they are living in the apartment as a way to explore different neighborhoods of Kansas City prior to buying a house. Again, in most families this would be a non-issue - but not in the Maxwells. The entire rest of the family lives in walking distance of each other! To visit Jesse, cars will have to be used! Planning will be required!
But surely the Maxwells will reconnect at church each week, right? The Maxwells don't home church. Nope, not the Maxwells. Instead, all of the adult family members are members of a church that meets at a local retirement community where Steve preaches, various Maxwells provide musical accompaniment, and there are 3-5 members of the retirement community compared to 18+ people who are Maxwells.
Totally not a home church.
Oh, wait. Jesse and Anna Maxwell are joining a church in Kansas City.
Good luck, young Maxwells. Enjoy your freedom - and work on setting those boundaries. Your marriage will be stronger for it.
As of April this year, all three girls were unmarried and living at home with their parents and their youngest brother Jesse. The other four brothers were married and living nearby. Nathan and Christopher lived in homes within direct sight of the Main Maxwell home. Joseph and John owned homes located within a few lots of each other 0.7 miles away from the rest of the family. Jesse owned a home across the street from John and Joseph - but since he was unmarried - he continued to live at home and rented the house out.
There had been some internet rumors of Jesse being engaged. The Maxwells used to announce engagements on their website - but after Christopher and Joseph each had an engagement called off - the Maxwells started maintaining radio silence prior to weddings. (They grudgingly acknowledged John's engagement online after Chelsy's family announced the engagement.) The only concern the internet had was that Jesse's fiancee was quite young. She turned twenty a few weeks before her wedding.
Actually, there was one other issue. Her name was Anna Craig - which means that the family would need to figure out a way to differentiate one more Anna on their blog from daughter Anna and Christopher's wife Anna.
I digress.
Then in March, Maxwell watchers got a new surprise. Jesse Maxwell sold his house - and there was radio silence about that on the blog - so presumably he wasn't swapping houses for one closer to his parents.
Personally, I was hoping that he was going to relocate to Ohio so his wife would be closer to her family while he'd be farther from his family. Now, I live about a mile from my husband's parents, but I married at 30 rather than twenty - and I am very consistent on setting boundaries. The Maxwells seem to be rather more enmeshed than is good for a young wife to deal with so I was hoping for a relocation to a different state. In case you think I'm being overly dramatic, take a look at the photos (released after the wedding) of Jesse packing up his stuff followed by a whole family prayer service with blessings. I was totally convinced at this point that Jesse was going to be a Buckeye!
What we got is even better - Jesse and Anna Maxwell seem to be doing their own thing while killing a few sacred Maxwell cows for good measure.
Remember the tearful blessings? Jesse moved to Kansas City, KS - which is a 30-40 minute drive in good weather. The newlyweds can literally drive to see the Maxwells daily; I had a longer commute to my teaching job after I married my husband.
Silly me - I'm grounding this in my experiences. Jesse moved 400 times farther away than any other Maxwell has before! Of course, Christopher's Anna moved from Washington to Kansas while John's Chelsy moved from Iowa - so the sisters-in-law might be struggling to keep a straight face while the original Maxwells suffer from separation anxiety.
Instead of safely ensconcing his new wife in Maxwell-Land, Jesse Maxwell is now living in an apartment! For most young newlyweds in the US, apartment living is normal. For the Maxwells, this is straight-up heresy. The Maxwells have sold a book called "Buying a House Debt-Free: Equipping Your Son" based on the fact that Maxwell Men earn enough money prior to marriage to buy a house and are able to raise huge families with less stress because they don't have a mortgage payment and don't pay rent. Living in an apartment for a year is essentially a giant "Nope" to a huge cornerstone of Maxwellian thought.
Lest we think Jesse will return to Leavenworth, he's stated that they are living in the apartment as a way to explore different neighborhoods of Kansas City prior to buying a house. Again, in most families this would be a non-issue - but not in the Maxwells. The entire rest of the family lives in walking distance of each other! To visit Jesse, cars will have to be used! Planning will be required!
But surely the Maxwells will reconnect at church each week, right? The Maxwells don't home church. Nope, not the Maxwells. Instead, all of the adult family members are members of a church that meets at a local retirement community where Steve preaches, various Maxwells provide musical accompaniment, and there are 3-5 members of the retirement community compared to 18+ people who are Maxwells.
Totally not a home church.
Oh, wait. Jesse and Anna Maxwell are joining a church in Kansas City.
Good luck, young Maxwells. Enjoy your freedom - and work on setting those boundaries. Your marriage will be stronger for it.
Monday, July 6, 2020
Yet Another Quick Update
Sorry for the extended absence, dear readers.
The last three weeks or so have been chaotic and exhausting here in Michigan.
Four weeks ago or so, I used a new hand soap at work. When I put it on my hands, my hands itched intensely. I immediately washed it off and used another soap, then completely forgot about the incident.
A few days later, my hands erupted into the worst case of dyshidrotic eczema I ever had.
I needed immediate medical attention and couldn't find a babysitter, so I loaded up my son and took him to a nearby urgent care clinic. On our way there, we were hit by a gullywasher rainstorm. My son freaked out in the backseat of the car. Thankfully, we were near the clinic and I got him calmed down. I got a very strong topical steroid to use on my hands.
That night, we had a strong line of storms move through. This caused a heavy wood door upstairs to slam shut while my son was asleep. The Spawn went into a full-panic attack - and we lost power all at once. We got Spawn calmed down, sent my husband down to sleep in the recliner (he's a CPAP user and without power his snoring would be epic unless he slept in a mostly upright position), and settled down with Spawn in bed with me.
This started a three-week period of Spawn being terrified of being in his room alone and slowly, slowly, slowly weaning him off of having my husband or I in the room while he fell asleep.
The steroid cream worked - but a lot of damage had already been done. I developed extensive blistering on my left hand that was so painful that I needed to have it drained by a doctor. (There's a whole other story with that fiasco - but I'll tell you about that some other time.) The doctor strongly recommended adding prednisone. I had one night of good sleep after my hand was drained - I hadn't realized how many times a night I was waking up because my hand hurt - and then the prednisone killed sleep for me. That was a mixed blessing; I really like and need sleep - but sleep training a preschooler with anxiety is easier when you are mostly awake all night already.
Fun fact: prednisone makes me angry and irritable. Mixing prednisone with working in retail was a master class in moderating speech and choosing to let other people's flaws wash over me. It worked - coworkers had noticed I was quieter than normal - but I didn't damage any relationships by telling anyone exactly what I was thinking about their work ethic, pitch of their voice or make-up choices.
I had a week of recovering from the eczema - and all hell broke loose on the farm my husband used to be a partner in. (That's another whole story, too.) This caused several severe rifts within my husband's family of origin and everyone was kind of figuring out the new lay of the land. By unspoken agreement, everyone was simply going to tiptoe around and hang out in small groups to let everyone calm down and maybe heal a bit before trying a large family gathering.
That worked for around 10 days. Then my mother-in-law's father died unexpectedly on Friday.
Opa was a good, kind man and doing fairly well - but he was also 89 and refused to stop doing farm work. He collapsed and died while hooking his brush hog up to his tractor. I miss Opa - but he lost his wife last year and was going to need to move into assisted care before winter which he did not want to do. He said frequently that he'd totally be ok dying farming (usually in response to anyone who told him that he needed to stop doing farm work) and that he did not want a lingering death. I am sad for myself, our family and that my son is too young to remember his great-grandfather - but Opa has a good death and he's back with Oma so I am not sad for him.
The only awkward bit is that we're all having to play Happy Family (TM) a few months before anyone would really be ready. Ironically, COVID is making this easier; all of the normal rituals are being simplified and pared down for safety. We buried Opa today with only local family members present. It was a simple, honest and loving ceremony; Opa would have liked it.
My son is sleeping in his own bed again; he's a brave little guy and has worked hard at sleeping in his bed again. My hands are back to normal. We'll be having a limited wake and funeral for Opa this weekend at his church.
I promise I'll be writing again soon; I've just got some more urgent concerns this second.
Be safe; stay healthy.
The last three weeks or so have been chaotic and exhausting here in Michigan.
Four weeks ago or so, I used a new hand soap at work. When I put it on my hands, my hands itched intensely. I immediately washed it off and used another soap, then completely forgot about the incident.
A few days later, my hands erupted into the worst case of dyshidrotic eczema I ever had.
I needed immediate medical attention and couldn't find a babysitter, so I loaded up my son and took him to a nearby urgent care clinic. On our way there, we were hit by a gullywasher rainstorm. My son freaked out in the backseat of the car. Thankfully, we were near the clinic and I got him calmed down. I got a very strong topical steroid to use on my hands.
That night, we had a strong line of storms move through. This caused a heavy wood door upstairs to slam shut while my son was asleep. The Spawn went into a full-panic attack - and we lost power all at once. We got Spawn calmed down, sent my husband down to sleep in the recliner (he's a CPAP user and without power his snoring would be epic unless he slept in a mostly upright position), and settled down with Spawn in bed with me.
This started a three-week period of Spawn being terrified of being in his room alone and slowly, slowly, slowly weaning him off of having my husband or I in the room while he fell asleep.
The steroid cream worked - but a lot of damage had already been done. I developed extensive blistering on my left hand that was so painful that I needed to have it drained by a doctor. (There's a whole other story with that fiasco - but I'll tell you about that some other time.) The doctor strongly recommended adding prednisone. I had one night of good sleep after my hand was drained - I hadn't realized how many times a night I was waking up because my hand hurt - and then the prednisone killed sleep for me. That was a mixed blessing; I really like and need sleep - but sleep training a preschooler with anxiety is easier when you are mostly awake all night already.
Fun fact: prednisone makes me angry and irritable. Mixing prednisone with working in retail was a master class in moderating speech and choosing to let other people's flaws wash over me. It worked - coworkers had noticed I was quieter than normal - but I didn't damage any relationships by telling anyone exactly what I was thinking about their work ethic, pitch of their voice or make-up choices.
I had a week of recovering from the eczema - and all hell broke loose on the farm my husband used to be a partner in. (That's another whole story, too.) This caused several severe rifts within my husband's family of origin and everyone was kind of figuring out the new lay of the land. By unspoken agreement, everyone was simply going to tiptoe around and hang out in small groups to let everyone calm down and maybe heal a bit before trying a large family gathering.
That worked for around 10 days. Then my mother-in-law's father died unexpectedly on Friday.
Opa was a good, kind man and doing fairly well - but he was also 89 and refused to stop doing farm work. He collapsed and died while hooking his brush hog up to his tractor. I miss Opa - but he lost his wife last year and was going to need to move into assisted care before winter which he did not want to do. He said frequently that he'd totally be ok dying farming (usually in response to anyone who told him that he needed to stop doing farm work) and that he did not want a lingering death. I am sad for myself, our family and that my son is too young to remember his great-grandfather - but Opa has a good death and he's back with Oma so I am not sad for him.
The only awkward bit is that we're all having to play Happy Family (TM) a few months before anyone would really be ready. Ironically, COVID is making this easier; all of the normal rituals are being simplified and pared down for safety. We buried Opa today with only local family members present. It was a simple, honest and loving ceremony; Opa would have liked it.
My son is sleeping in his own bed again; he's a brave little guy and has worked hard at sleeping in his bed again. My hands are back to normal. We'll be having a limited wake and funeral for Opa this weekend at his church.
I promise I'll be writing again soon; I've just got some more urgent concerns this second.
Be safe; stay healthy.
Monday, June 8, 2020
The Battle Of Peer Dependence: Chapter 4 - Part Three
People's responses to cognitive dissonance fascinate me.
When I was doing research for a Master's degree before my son was born, I discussed in semi-formal interviews with students their understanding of various laws of science. The class I was working with could be used for a general education credit or towards the biology majors/minors so there was a mix of biology majors, biology minors and non-majors. All of the students were familiar with the biological definition of species. The biological definition of a species is that any organisms that can breed to produce fertile offspring are members of the same species. To explore how the students dealt with the many, many exceptions to the biological definition of species I introduced an example that flouted the biological definition of species and asked the students to discuss how that example affected their understanding of the biological definition of species.
Now, prior to getting into this area of research, I assumed that the more exposure a person had to advanced biological concepts the more likely the person would be to reject the biological definition of species (which is a more advanced understanding of the nature of science) as being flawed while people with less exposure would be less likely to reject the definition.
Oh, I was so wrong! Non-majors sometimes needed a refresher on the biological definition of species - but when confronted with a clear exception to the definition of species - the non-majors generally stated that the definition must be wrong if there were clear exceptions to the definitions.
Compare with the non-majors, the major and minor students would wrap themselves in circles trying to reconcile the exception to the rule.
The same discrepancy happened around the idea of the scientific method. We teach kids and teens that the scientific method is ordered, has discrete steps and moves linearly from beginning to end. It's a nice teaching tool - but actual scientific research doesn't work like that at all. Hypotheses change, experiments morph and data shows that a completely different process is going on. The group for whom this cognitive dissonance was most severe was college-students who had participated in scientific research themselves. These students would give highly detailed descriptions of their research which didn't follow the traditional model of the scientific method. We'd talk a bit about the model of the scientific method which the majors had heard a lot about and I ask if their research experience matched the scientific method taught in schools or not. Most students would say that their research experience followed the scientific method - and then the students would retroactively shoehorn their research activities into the method.
I bring up cognitive dissonance because Chapter Four of Marina Sears' "The Battle for Peer Dependence" has plenty of moments where Marina Sears morphs her family's history to fit the husband-leader model of CP/QF family.
Honestly, I hadn't noticed that the Sears' children had been in traditional schools prior to Jeff's death until I was doing the prep work for this chapter - but while Jeff was alive, the kids were in a traditional school. In fact, in the previous post, Mrs. Sears' father fixed the oldest boys bike tires because Chris asked him to while Marina's father was driving Chris and David to school.
This means that Jeff Sears may have objected to his children being homeschooled when he was alive if Marina had been lead by God to start homeschooling. Obviously, we'll never know - but there's a possibility that Marina's insistence on homeschooling would have been objectionable to Jeff.
In CP/QF land, though, a woman can never, ever make a decision for herself. In Marina Sears's case, God made the decision that the Sears kids needed homeschooling and Marina was simply following God's plans for the kids. By displacing all control onto God - with occasional wistful wishes for Jeff's guidance - Marina Sears does a masterful job of hiding the fact that she's personally choosing what her kids are learning. There's a very different feel to "God is telling me how to educate my children" than a more honest "I feel overwhelmed at the idea of planning an educational curriculum for two children!"
There's a darker side-effect that starts to appear once Mrs. Sears is certain that she's doing God's plan. It's hard enough as a mere mortal to accept criticism of parenting choices. Once parenting choices become mandated by God, however, Mrs. Sears develops an instrangent and prickly response to any adults who choose to raise their kids differently. For most of us, differences in parenting choices are part of what makes life interesting; for Mrs. Sears, it's a sign that other people are failures as Christians.
As we move through the book, we will see other examples of the problems that can start when Marina's personal choices run into conflict with other adults - and her insistence that she's only doing what God wants - and therefore everyone else is wrong.
When I was doing research for a Master's degree before my son was born, I discussed in semi-formal interviews with students their understanding of various laws of science. The class I was working with could be used for a general education credit or towards the biology majors/minors so there was a mix of biology majors, biology minors and non-majors. All of the students were familiar with the biological definition of species. The biological definition of a species is that any organisms that can breed to produce fertile offspring are members of the same species. To explore how the students dealt with the many, many exceptions to the biological definition of species I introduced an example that flouted the biological definition of species and asked the students to discuss how that example affected their understanding of the biological definition of species.
Now, prior to getting into this area of research, I assumed that the more exposure a person had to advanced biological concepts the more likely the person would be to reject the biological definition of species (which is a more advanced understanding of the nature of science) as being flawed while people with less exposure would be less likely to reject the definition.
Oh, I was so wrong! Non-majors sometimes needed a refresher on the biological definition of species - but when confronted with a clear exception to the definition of species - the non-majors generally stated that the definition must be wrong if there were clear exceptions to the definitions.
Compare with the non-majors, the major and minor students would wrap themselves in circles trying to reconcile the exception to the rule.
The same discrepancy happened around the idea of the scientific method. We teach kids and teens that the scientific method is ordered, has discrete steps and moves linearly from beginning to end. It's a nice teaching tool - but actual scientific research doesn't work like that at all. Hypotheses change, experiments morph and data shows that a completely different process is going on. The group for whom this cognitive dissonance was most severe was college-students who had participated in scientific research themselves. These students would give highly detailed descriptions of their research which didn't follow the traditional model of the scientific method. We'd talk a bit about the model of the scientific method which the majors had heard a lot about and I ask if their research experience matched the scientific method taught in schools or not. Most students would say that their research experience followed the scientific method - and then the students would retroactively shoehorn their research activities into the method.
I bring up cognitive dissonance because Chapter Four of Marina Sears' "The Battle for Peer Dependence" has plenty of moments where Marina Sears morphs her family's history to fit the husband-leader model of CP/QF family.
Honestly, I hadn't noticed that the Sears' children had been in traditional schools prior to Jeff's death until I was doing the prep work for this chapter - but while Jeff was alive, the kids were in a traditional school. In fact, in the previous post, Mrs. Sears' father fixed the oldest boys bike tires because Chris asked him to while Marina's father was driving Chris and David to school.
This means that Jeff Sears may have objected to his children being homeschooled when he was alive if Marina had been lead by God to start homeschooling. Obviously, we'll never know - but there's a possibility that Marina's insistence on homeschooling would have been objectionable to Jeff.
In CP/QF land, though, a woman can never, ever make a decision for herself. In Marina Sears's case, God made the decision that the Sears kids needed homeschooling and Marina was simply following God's plans for the kids. By displacing all control onto God - with occasional wistful wishes for Jeff's guidance - Marina Sears does a masterful job of hiding the fact that she's personally choosing what her kids are learning. There's a very different feel to "God is telling me how to educate my children" than a more honest "I feel overwhelmed at the idea of planning an educational curriculum for two children!"
There's a darker side-effect that starts to appear once Mrs. Sears is certain that she's doing God's plan. It's hard enough as a mere mortal to accept criticism of parenting choices. Once parenting choices become mandated by God, however, Mrs. Sears develops an instrangent and prickly response to any adults who choose to raise their kids differently. For most of us, differences in parenting choices are part of what makes life interesting; for Mrs. Sears, it's a sign that other people are failures as Christians.
As we move through the book, we will see other examples of the problems that can start when Marina's personal choices run into conflict with other adults - and her insistence that she's only doing what God wants - and therefore everyone else is wrong.
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
The Battle Of Peer Dependence: Chapter 4 - Part Two
What a wild few weeks we have had!
We had snow on May 12th. On May 26th, it was 87 degrees at noon.
Three weeks ago, I had no available services for my son due to COVID-19 shutdowns. No arguments from me; safety first! I had (and will always have) a love-hate relationship with the Early On theory of "therapist as teacher for parent as coach" - but three years of that gave me plenty of practice being my son's main therapist so I felt reasonably competent for a non-professional.
Around 10 days ago, I got a call that the clinic where he gets outpatient PT and speech was reopening for evaluations only with lots of safety precautions - but the Spawn was due for an evaluation anyway - and maybe we could get trained eyes on him twice or three times more before fall if I played my cards right.
His evaluations were three days later; by that point, Michigan was planning to reopen medical services for non-essential procedures like outpatient pediatric rehab on May 29th. God willing and the creek don't rise - Spawn should be getting weekly services starting this Friday!
Almost two years ago, Spawn was so nervous at his first outpatient PT appointment that he cried the entire time.
A year ago, he spoke so little that the speech therapist used a parent-reported score on the test of Spawn's communication and speech skills because I think he said 3 words in the space of an hour. If he said more words, it was simply a repeat of "bye-bye" as he tried to crawl out of the room or climb back into the stroller. (He is persistent - which is both an incredible strength and weakness at the same time.).
This time, Spawn was nervous at the beginning of PT - but mostly because every human outside of the house was wearing a cloth thingy on their face - and that's a bad sign, right? Mamma's wearing one too? Oh...that can't be good. So he was a bit clingy and teary at first. That ended when the physical therapist who examined him pulled out a ramp and launched a toy car across the room. Pretty quickly, Spawn was describing the different cars as "monster trucks" or "little excavator" or "blue car" while practicing transitioning between objects.
The best moment came, though, when the same speech therapist who examined him a year ago came into the room to examine him again. After chattering with him as he pointed out the people and cars and weather outside the window, she excused herself. Spawn's speech had grown so much in a year that she needed to get a different test; he'd advanced beyond the one she was expecting. He still qualifies for speech services - but he's in the ballpark for a kid his age now - and that feels amazing.
Years ago, a therapist I admire said something in a group session that stuck with me. He said that he doesn't always like the options he has available in his life - but he always focuses on the fact that he makes choices. I think that stuck with me because I feel more empowered in my life when I accept that I make choices - and because of that - I have agency in my life. Developing rapid onset severe preeclampsia with HELLP affected the options I've had available in my life since 28 hours before my son was born - but I chose and choose the available option that best reconciles my beliefs with the needs of all the members in my family including me.
I bring this up while in a pensive mood because I often wonder if Marina Sears - author of "The Battle of Peer Dependence" - has ever recognized that she herself makes choices that lead to consequences. Take this quote:
After Jeff Sears died in a freak car accident, Marina Sears was the head of her household. Since her oldest child was 7 years old at that point, she was the only adult in the home. Mrs. Sears was in complete control of where her family lived especially after the house she owned with Jeff was sold 14 months after he died.
From reading the previous quote, however, a reader would be excused for thinking that Marina Sears was a passive onlooker as her family completed two large moves in a year.
Maybe she had an unusually precocious 8-9 year old who managed to move his entire family across state lines twice in two years. Or her infant was really a prodigy of logistics prior to age two.
Or maybe part of the appeal of CP/QF theology is the abdication of personal responsibility for believers. After all, fervent believers abandon any responsibility for deciding if or when their family is ready for another baby. They simply have vaginal intercourse and declare that the timing of their family is "up to God".
Once you've given up responsibility for family planning, I guess it's not so hard to ignore the fact that a young widow with four children ended up feeling alone in Texas because the young widow chose to move to a location that was several days drive away from her parents.
There's nothing wrong with her choice to move at all - but her lack of responsibility for the natural consequences of her choice is troubling.
This next story occurred several months after Jeff died. Marina was nearly due to give birth to her youngest son and her parents had moved from Montana to New Mexico (or Arizona or Texas; wherever they lived) to care for her and her family during labor and after the baby was born. The reason I share this story is Marina's enthusiasm for God and lack of common sense must be exhausting for her extended family:
Let's discuss the competency levels of the three generations of people present in this synopsis.
Marina's parents are highly competent. They've rearranged their lives to provide support for their widowed daughter who is about to give birth. Marina's dad is taking the boys to school and asking them if they need anything done. Marina's dad can change a bike tire.
Similarly, Marina's sons are quite competent for their ages. Chris who is around 8 and David who is around 6 are refilling their bike tires every few days, The two boys are keeping busy riding their bikes and going to school. They know how to ask for help from their grandfather to solve a perplexing chronic problem
Yes, the men in this story are highly competent - but Marina is characterized as being nearly helpless. In reality, she must have been completely exhausted. I've never experienced advanced pregnancy - but even late second trimester pregnancy was tiring. My stomach felt huge, my back was sore and my center of gravity was in a completely different place than normal. I joked with my husband that I was afraid if I laid down on my back I'd never be able to get up again because I'd be stuck like a turtle turned upside down. Marina wasn't just very, very pregnant - she had also been widowed five or six months before. Grief is absolutely exhausting as well - so to my way of thinking - if she got out of bed that morning, she was doing amazingly well.
No, Marina is portrayed instead as a standard issue CP/QF woman - highly emotional and religiously excitable - who is seemingly incapable in the absence of a man. She's very vague on where her young sons ride their bikes. She didn't notice that their tires seemed flat or that the boys seemed to be exerting a lot of force to ride on flat tires. Her sons didn't think to tell her about the tires - and if they did - Marina has no idea how to change a tire and seems unable to conceptualize that she could get help from anyone else. The idea that Marina was completely incapable of changing a bike tire is the most perplexing part of the story in my opinion. Her boys are young so I'm assuming they are riding a single speed bike that the rider activates the brakes by reversing the direction of peddling. The process of changing those tires is simple - simple enough that a CP/QF woman should be able to do it without infringing on "male" activities. After all, Marina states that she doesn't have the knowledge to change the tires - not that she'd do it if she wasn't hugely pregnant and unable to maneuver well enough to change tires on a bike.
My life is often complicated - but not nearly as complicated as it could be if I had to be incompetent in the absence of a male protector.
We had snow on May 12th. On May 26th, it was 87 degrees at noon.
Three weeks ago, I had no available services for my son due to COVID-19 shutdowns. No arguments from me; safety first! I had (and will always have) a love-hate relationship with the Early On theory of "therapist as teacher for parent as coach" - but three years of that gave me plenty of practice being my son's main therapist so I felt reasonably competent for a non-professional.
Around 10 days ago, I got a call that the clinic where he gets outpatient PT and speech was reopening for evaluations only with lots of safety precautions - but the Spawn was due for an evaluation anyway - and maybe we could get trained eyes on him twice or three times more before fall if I played my cards right.
His evaluations were three days later; by that point, Michigan was planning to reopen medical services for non-essential procedures like outpatient pediatric rehab on May 29th. God willing and the creek don't rise - Spawn should be getting weekly services starting this Friday!
Almost two years ago, Spawn was so nervous at his first outpatient PT appointment that he cried the entire time.
A year ago, he spoke so little that the speech therapist used a parent-reported score on the test of Spawn's communication and speech skills because I think he said 3 words in the space of an hour. If he said more words, it was simply a repeat of "bye-bye" as he tried to crawl out of the room or climb back into the stroller. (He is persistent - which is both an incredible strength and weakness at the same time.).
This time, Spawn was nervous at the beginning of PT - but mostly because every human outside of the house was wearing a cloth thingy on their face - and that's a bad sign, right? Mamma's wearing one too? Oh...that can't be good. So he was a bit clingy and teary at first. That ended when the physical therapist who examined him pulled out a ramp and launched a toy car across the room. Pretty quickly, Spawn was describing the different cars as "monster trucks" or "little excavator" or "blue car" while practicing transitioning between objects.
The best moment came, though, when the same speech therapist who examined him a year ago came into the room to examine him again. After chattering with him as he pointed out the people and cars and weather outside the window, she excused herself. Spawn's speech had grown so much in a year that she needed to get a different test; he'd advanced beyond the one she was expecting. He still qualifies for speech services - but he's in the ballpark for a kid his age now - and that feels amazing.
Years ago, a therapist I admire said something in a group session that stuck with me. He said that he doesn't always like the options he has available in his life - but he always focuses on the fact that he makes choices. I think that stuck with me because I feel more empowered in my life when I accept that I make choices - and because of that - I have agency in my life. Developing rapid onset severe preeclampsia with HELLP affected the options I've had available in my life since 28 hours before my son was born - but I chose and choose the available option that best reconciles my beliefs with the needs of all the members in my family including me.
I bring this up while in a pensive mood because I often wonder if Marina Sears - author of "The Battle of Peer Dependence" - has ever recognized that she herself makes choices that lead to consequences. Take this quote:
After Jeff Sears died in a freak car accident, Marina Sears was the head of her household. Since her oldest child was 7 years old at that point, she was the only adult in the home. Mrs. Sears was in complete control of where her family lived especially after the house she owned with Jeff was sold 14 months after he died.
From reading the previous quote, however, a reader would be excused for thinking that Marina Sears was a passive onlooker as her family completed two large moves in a year.
Maybe she had an unusually precocious 8-9 year old who managed to move his entire family across state lines twice in two years. Or her infant was really a prodigy of logistics prior to age two.
Or maybe part of the appeal of CP/QF theology is the abdication of personal responsibility for believers. After all, fervent believers abandon any responsibility for deciding if or when their family is ready for another baby. They simply have vaginal intercourse and declare that the timing of their family is "up to God".
Once you've given up responsibility for family planning, I guess it's not so hard to ignore the fact that a young widow with four children ended up feeling alone in Texas because the young widow chose to move to a location that was several days drive away from her parents.
There's nothing wrong with her choice to move at all - but her lack of responsibility for the natural consequences of her choice is troubling.
This next story occurred several months after Jeff died. Marina was nearly due to give birth to her youngest son and her parents had moved from Montana to New Mexico (or Arizona or Texas; wherever they lived) to care for her and her family during labor and after the baby was born. The reason I share this story is Marina's enthusiasm for God and lack of common sense must be exhausting for her extended family:
Let's discuss the competency levels of the three generations of people present in this synopsis.
Marina's parents are highly competent. They've rearranged their lives to provide support for their widowed daughter who is about to give birth. Marina's dad is taking the boys to school and asking them if they need anything done. Marina's dad can change a bike tire.
Similarly, Marina's sons are quite competent for their ages. Chris who is around 8 and David who is around 6 are refilling their bike tires every few days, The two boys are keeping busy riding their bikes and going to school. They know how to ask for help from their grandfather to solve a perplexing chronic problem
Yes, the men in this story are highly competent - but Marina is characterized as being nearly helpless. In reality, she must have been completely exhausted. I've never experienced advanced pregnancy - but even late second trimester pregnancy was tiring. My stomach felt huge, my back was sore and my center of gravity was in a completely different place than normal. I joked with my husband that I was afraid if I laid down on my back I'd never be able to get up again because I'd be stuck like a turtle turned upside down. Marina wasn't just very, very pregnant - she had also been widowed five or six months before. Grief is absolutely exhausting as well - so to my way of thinking - if she got out of bed that morning, she was doing amazingly well.
No, Marina is portrayed instead as a standard issue CP/QF woman - highly emotional and religiously excitable - who is seemingly incapable in the absence of a man. She's very vague on where her young sons ride their bikes. She didn't notice that their tires seemed flat or that the boys seemed to be exerting a lot of force to ride on flat tires. Her sons didn't think to tell her about the tires - and if they did - Marina has no idea how to change a tire and seems unable to conceptualize that she could get help from anyone else. The idea that Marina was completely incapable of changing a bike tire is the most perplexing part of the story in my opinion. Her boys are young so I'm assuming they are riding a single speed bike that the rider activates the brakes by reversing the direction of peddling. The process of changing those tires is simple - simple enough that a CP/QF woman should be able to do it without infringing on "male" activities. After all, Marina states that she doesn't have the knowledge to change the tires - not that she'd do it if she wasn't hugely pregnant and unable to maneuver well enough to change tires on a bike.
My life is often complicated - but not nearly as complicated as it could be if I had to be incompetent in the absence of a male protector.
Sunday, May 17, 2020
Joyfully At Home: Chapter 13 - Part Three
Our family got hit with our semi-annual stomach flu bug. This one felt ironic more than anything; we've been social distancing long enough that you'd think a stomach sickness would have passed its expiration date.
Honestly, I think I picked it up at work. We do our best to social distance - but there's not really enough room in the paint pit or at the service desk to stay six feet apart from each other. Our home-made masks or cheap disposable surgical masks provided by our employer don't do much (if anything) to prevent getting an infection ourselves; they just provide a very slight decrease in the chance of passing COVID-19 on if we get infected.
Outside of that, life is good. My son is growing and picking up new skills all the time. That makes me happy. I've seen him try to take a few little stutter steps on his own - and that was completely unthinkable last year. He's started saying "Hi!" and "Good morning!" to bikers and walkers on our daily walks - and that's a huge step outside of his comfort zone. In fact, on our last outing, he said "Good job, people!" to a bunch of older men who were riding bikes and who quickly rearranged their bikes to let my son pass in his walker.
In Jasmine Baucham's "Joyfully At Home" we're two chapters into a long rant on how Jasmine will never, ever need to work outside the home because she's going to be a SAHD until she married - and then she's going to raise her large brood on her husband's single income. Her absolute refusal to imagine for 30 seconds that there are a lot of potential reasons that a woman may need (let alone want) to work outside the home makes me wonder if she's read "The Secret" or "The Prayer of Jabez" or any of those other awful "Power of Positive Thought" junk books. I have this nagging feeling that she believes if she even thinks about being a single adult, a young widow with children or a wife who needs to work part-time, Jasmine is afraid she'll bring that outcome on herself.
I, on the other hand, was the kid who read all of the emergency planning guides in my Girl Scout Handbooks. I genuinely hoped that I'd never need to escape flooding, get out of a house fire or shelter in place during a blizzard - but I figured that having thought about what to do ahead of time was far better than having to adlib during an emergency.
By the third question, though, I have to give her imaginary conversation buddy a kudos. I'd have written Jasmine off as far too ill-prepared for adult life (which is similar to "immature") to continue beating a dead horse
I hadn't realized that Christ provided cash payments to believers.
If so, Christ owes me like 20 years of back payments. I'm assuming years 1-18 were cashed out to my parents since I was a minor.
That's not what Jasmine was saying?
But that's what the question was asking - how exactly will a SAHD turned SAHW turned SAHM do for income if that's what her future family needs?
Jasmine's response was a fancier version of "Christ will provide!" - and that's a motto that sounds better when you are the person with extra money supporting a needy family you know than the needy family who doesn't know where the money they need for rent or food is coming from.
Jasmine's rhetorical riff on "totally real people she knows with three degrees who got laid off" misses the point of Three-Degree's worry. Three-Degree isn't saying that a college degree is a solid gold perfect hedge against job loss. No, Three-Degree is pointing out that people with college degrees get laid off in spite of being in a group who faces much lower rates of unemployment. Since college degree holders face periodic job losses and economic hard times, the outlook for a SAHD who has a homeschool high school diploma, no work experience outside of her family business and no post-secondary degree or advanced training is bleak.
The point is especially bleak since SAHD's often play at jobs that they are unqualified for outside of their family or have very high bars to entry on a wider scale. Let's look at a few options:
Research Assistant: Jasmine Baucham describes herself as a research assistant to her father - which is the same job description that Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin used to describe their work for their brothers when their brothers were making educational films. The issue is that all of those young women are at least 4 years and a Bachelor's degree in Science away from having the skills to work as a technical research assistant or at least six years away from having a Master's in Library Science to work as a librarian. The only other similar(ish) job I can think of is working as a paralegal which would require at least a few college classes and an internship.
Author: This one is a very popular career track! Sarah Maxwell has published 11 children's books and is working on a 12th. Sarah Mally has published two books and co-published a third book with her siblings. Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin have published two books. And obviously, Jasmine Baucham has written one book. The issue, though, is that all of the books with two exceptions were published by the author's family ministry. In other words, 16 of 18 of the books were self-published.
The remaining two books - So Much More by Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin and Joyfully At Home by Jasmine Baucham - were published by Vision Forum. That's certainly one step farther away from self-publishing - but we know nothing of the process by which the books were created. Did the authors pitch their books to Vision Forum before writing them? Did the authors (or their representatives) go through rounds of negotiation on compensation? What control (if any) did Vision Forum have over editing? Or was this simply a deal between Doug Phillips and two of his supporters?
Even if a SAHD landed a contract with a mainstream publishing house, she'd need to greatly increase her rate of production. Sarah Maxwell has produced her 11 short children's books over close to 20 years - and she's the most prolific writer by a long shot. Sarah Mally and the Botkin Sisters, on the other hand, have produced around one book a decade; that's not going to be enough to live on.
Artist/Illustrator: If you have a book, it needs illustrations, right? This seems to be the area used for younger sisters of SAHDs who have already been declared authors. Mary Maxwell is the illustrator for Sarah Maxwell's books while Grace Mally is the illustrator for Sarah Mally's books. I am not confident of my ability to judge the artistic merit of either SAHD's work. I do, however, know that the job market for artists in general is always very, very tight and both young women would be going up against men and women with degrees, portfolios and previous commissioned works by non-family members.
Nanny/Childcare Assistant: Technically, I'm not sure they qualify as nannies or childcare assistants since they rarely care for kids who are not immediate family members or children of siblings. Learning how to manage children of your employers is a different experience than caring for family members - and not always harder! The hard bit, honestly, is going to be earning anything close to a living wage on these jobs. Searching in-home childcare jobs in my area of Michigan gives an average wage per hour of $10.00. That's $1.25 an hour less than I made when I started at my hardware store job - and my employer is paying me legally. If the SAHDs would be working as independent contractors (legally or otherwise), that's a take home pay of less than $5.00 per hour.
Tutors/Educational Paraprofessionals: At least in my state, SAHDs would struggle to get independent tutoring jobs outside of their church communities. The reason is simple: Michigan produces a lot of college-educated teachers. They'd be going up against retired teachers, teachers who are staying at home with their kids right now, and education students. In other words, the market is pretty close to saturated with highly qualified candidates already.
Well, what about center-based tutoring or working as a paraprofessional? For center-based tutoring, SAHDs would be going up against the same quality candidates for individual tutoring - plus they would need to compete against current teachers. Because of that, most centers require a completed college degree as a minimum entry point for reading tutoring or at least evidence of advanced college level math courses for math tutors. In Michigan, paraprofessionals need at least 60 credit hours of college classes - so no dice for most SAHDs.
Building a career is a lot of work. My worry is that a SAHD who needs to enter the job market at 35 or 45 or 55 will be doing all of the druggery that the rest of us did in our teens and twenties - but have the financial responsibilities of a wife, mother or widow. That's pretty bleak - and that's what many of us worry about when we ask these questions.
Honestly, I think I picked it up at work. We do our best to social distance - but there's not really enough room in the paint pit or at the service desk to stay six feet apart from each other. Our home-made masks or cheap disposable surgical masks provided by our employer don't do much (if anything) to prevent getting an infection ourselves; they just provide a very slight decrease in the chance of passing COVID-19 on if we get infected.
Outside of that, life is good. My son is growing and picking up new skills all the time. That makes me happy. I've seen him try to take a few little stutter steps on his own - and that was completely unthinkable last year. He's started saying "Hi!" and "Good morning!" to bikers and walkers on our daily walks - and that's a huge step outside of his comfort zone. In fact, on our last outing, he said "Good job, people!" to a bunch of older men who were riding bikes and who quickly rearranged their bikes to let my son pass in his walker.
In Jasmine Baucham's "Joyfully At Home" we're two chapters into a long rant on how Jasmine will never, ever need to work outside the home because she's going to be a SAHD until she married - and then she's going to raise her large brood on her husband's single income. Her absolute refusal to imagine for 30 seconds that there are a lot of potential reasons that a woman may need (let alone want) to work outside the home makes me wonder if she's read "The Secret" or "The Prayer of Jabez" or any of those other awful "Power of Positive Thought" junk books. I have this nagging feeling that she believes if she even thinks about being a single adult, a young widow with children or a wife who needs to work part-time, Jasmine is afraid she'll bring that outcome on herself.
I, on the other hand, was the kid who read all of the emergency planning guides in my Girl Scout Handbooks. I genuinely hoped that I'd never need to escape flooding, get out of a house fire or shelter in place during a blizzard - but I figured that having thought about what to do ahead of time was far better than having to adlib during an emergency.
By the third question, though, I have to give her imaginary conversation buddy a kudos. I'd have written Jasmine off as far too ill-prepared for adult life (which is similar to "immature") to continue beating a dead horse
I hadn't realized that Christ provided cash payments to believers.
If so, Christ owes me like 20 years of back payments. I'm assuming years 1-18 were cashed out to my parents since I was a minor.
That's not what Jasmine was saying?
But that's what the question was asking - how exactly will a SAHD turned SAHW turned SAHM do for income if that's what her future family needs?
Jasmine's response was a fancier version of "Christ will provide!" - and that's a motto that sounds better when you are the person with extra money supporting a needy family you know than the needy family who doesn't know where the money they need for rent or food is coming from.
Jasmine's rhetorical riff on "totally real people she knows with three degrees who got laid off" misses the point of Three-Degree's worry. Three-Degree isn't saying that a college degree is a solid gold perfect hedge against job loss. No, Three-Degree is pointing out that people with college degrees get laid off in spite of being in a group who faces much lower rates of unemployment. Since college degree holders face periodic job losses and economic hard times, the outlook for a SAHD who has a homeschool high school diploma, no work experience outside of her family business and no post-secondary degree or advanced training is bleak.
The point is especially bleak since SAHD's often play at jobs that they are unqualified for outside of their family or have very high bars to entry on a wider scale. Let's look at a few options:
Research Assistant: Jasmine Baucham describes herself as a research assistant to her father - which is the same job description that Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin used to describe their work for their brothers when their brothers were making educational films. The issue is that all of those young women are at least 4 years and a Bachelor's degree in Science away from having the skills to work as a technical research assistant or at least six years away from having a Master's in Library Science to work as a librarian. The only other similar(ish) job I can think of is working as a paralegal which would require at least a few college classes and an internship.
Author: This one is a very popular career track! Sarah Maxwell has published 11 children's books and is working on a 12th. Sarah Mally has published two books and co-published a third book with her siblings. Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin have published two books. And obviously, Jasmine Baucham has written one book. The issue, though, is that all of the books with two exceptions were published by the author's family ministry. In other words, 16 of 18 of the books were self-published.
The remaining two books - So Much More by Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin and Joyfully At Home by Jasmine Baucham - were published by Vision Forum. That's certainly one step farther away from self-publishing - but we know nothing of the process by which the books were created. Did the authors pitch their books to Vision Forum before writing them? Did the authors (or their representatives) go through rounds of negotiation on compensation? What control (if any) did Vision Forum have over editing? Or was this simply a deal between Doug Phillips and two of his supporters?
Even if a SAHD landed a contract with a mainstream publishing house, she'd need to greatly increase her rate of production. Sarah Maxwell has produced her 11 short children's books over close to 20 years - and she's the most prolific writer by a long shot. Sarah Mally and the Botkin Sisters, on the other hand, have produced around one book a decade; that's not going to be enough to live on.
Artist/Illustrator: If you have a book, it needs illustrations, right? This seems to be the area used for younger sisters of SAHDs who have already been declared authors. Mary Maxwell is the illustrator for Sarah Maxwell's books while Grace Mally is the illustrator for Sarah Mally's books. I am not confident of my ability to judge the artistic merit of either SAHD's work. I do, however, know that the job market for artists in general is always very, very tight and both young women would be going up against men and women with degrees, portfolios and previous commissioned works by non-family members.
Nanny/Childcare Assistant: Technically, I'm not sure they qualify as nannies or childcare assistants since they rarely care for kids who are not immediate family members or children of siblings. Learning how to manage children of your employers is a different experience than caring for family members - and not always harder! The hard bit, honestly, is going to be earning anything close to a living wage on these jobs. Searching in-home childcare jobs in my area of Michigan gives an average wage per hour of $10.00. That's $1.25 an hour less than I made when I started at my hardware store job - and my employer is paying me legally. If the SAHDs would be working as independent contractors (legally or otherwise), that's a take home pay of less than $5.00 per hour.
Tutors/Educational Paraprofessionals: At least in my state, SAHDs would struggle to get independent tutoring jobs outside of their church communities. The reason is simple: Michigan produces a lot of college-educated teachers. They'd be going up against retired teachers, teachers who are staying at home with their kids right now, and education students. In other words, the market is pretty close to saturated with highly qualified candidates already.
Well, what about center-based tutoring or working as a paraprofessional? For center-based tutoring, SAHDs would be going up against the same quality candidates for individual tutoring - plus they would need to compete against current teachers. Because of that, most centers require a completed college degree as a minimum entry point for reading tutoring or at least evidence of advanced college level math courses for math tutors. In Michigan, paraprofessionals need at least 60 credit hours of college classes - so no dice for most SAHDs.
Building a career is a lot of work. My worry is that a SAHD who needs to enter the job market at 35 or 45 or 55 will be doing all of the druggery that the rest of us did in our teens and twenties - but have the financial responsibilities of a wife, mother or widow. That's pretty bleak - and that's what many of us worry about when we ask these questions.
Saturday, May 9, 2020
CP/QF Crazy: Why don't smaller families invite us over?
I was digging around in my "Draft" folder when I found this post that I started but never finished. When I first started learning about CP/QF large families, there were four aligned bloggers who wrote weekly question and answer columns for large families. The four moms were The Headmistress at "The Common Room", KimC at "In A Shoe", Kimberly at "Raising Olives", and Connie at "Smockity Frocks". The questions and answers ran anywhere to straightforward logistics questions on how to raise kids through absolute crazy stuff. I remember reading this answer from KimC and realizing that women who are 2nd or 3rd generation large-family homeschoolers may honestly not understand why small families blanch or sweat at the thought of inviting a very large or huge family over to their house.
I'm sorry. I lost most of the answer because I was panic sweating at the thought of hosting a family of 15 or more at my house.
*begins deep breathing while reminding myself I don't know anyone with 13 children IRL*
Let's tackle the reasons I can think of:
1) Inviting KimC's family over for a dinner will blow my food budget.
Right now, my family consists of two adults and one preschooler. When I cook dinners, we consume around 4 servings - two for my husband, one for me, plus a serving that my son will be given a tiny amount, probably not eat that serving, but my husband or I will eat the rest of for breakfast or lunch the next day. I make a lot of casseroles and sheet pan meals that are around 12 servings total. When we eat every meal at home - which is very rare even during a pandemic - we need 2 casseroles a week with a day that my husband and I eat soup or salad from the pantry.
Invite KimC's family over and we need at least 18 servings for a single meal. That's 4.5 days of dinner for my family (which would include 3 single lunch servings). Cost-wise, dinners are the major spender on my food budget so that single meal consumes around 25% of my weekly food budget. That's assuming that everyone is satisfied with a single serving; that's pretty unlikely since people tend to eat more at social gatherings than when by themselves. If people average 1.5 servings each, we're going to need 27 servings which all of the food my family consumers for dinner in a week - and that's 50% of my food budget gone in one evening.
There have been times in the last few years where we literally could not afford to invite KimC's family over no matter how much we liked them; we just plain didn't have the money.
2) Inviting KimC's family over for dinner doubles my cooking time for the week.
I need an hour to prep and cook a casserole that will feed my family for half a week. Most of the time I make the two casseroles on two different days. That's two hours of food preparation time per week. Figure 15 minutes of shopping, 15 minutes of travel time and 15 minutes of cleaning up dishes used in the meal and for eating the casserole. That's roughly 3 hours of food preparation time for dinner weekly.
If I invite KimC's family over, I'd save a bit of time in making two identical casseroles at one so let's say that takes 1.25 hours. I'd still need 15 minutes to get the ingredients. I wouldn't gain any travel time - but doing all of the dishes created from that one dinner would take 30 minutes. That one dinner would take 2 hours to prep - but I'd still need to do roughly 3 hours of food prep to feed my family for the week.
3) Serving 18 people dinner at once would stretch my kitchen supplies to the breaking point.
I think I could do it - but there's no reserve left over. I would need to use both big casserole pans to make 27 servings. We own enough dishes and silverware for everyone to eat at once - but some people would be using plates while others used bowls and a person could have either a fork or a spoon and knife - but not both. I do not have enough glasses for everyone - so I'd need to purchase some disposable cups for drinks. Actually, I wouldn't invite that large of a crowd over without being able to purchase disposable cutlery and plates for everyone simply because using all of my dishes and silverware at once means we're going to be doing dishes for a few hours -and I don't want to.
4) There's never going to be a point where I have age-appropriate toys for all the age-groups in KimC's family.
Right now, I have toys available for kids between 0-5 years and teens. My son is three - but we've still got some baby toys floating around and some of his toys will interest older preschoolers or kindergarteners. Similarly, eventually kids are old enough to play the selection of board games we have available - but most of ours are geared more towards teens and adults like Scrabble or Apples to Apples. I don't have any of the games I remember playing in elementary or junior high like Clue, Sorry!, or Trouble. We also played Twister a lot; I'm going to assume that one is a no-go in CP/QF families because of the incidental physical contact. I don't have any sports toys for soccer, football, kickball or basketball which we played a lot as kids. We don't have a swing set for that age group although we do have a tractor tire sandbox.
I suspect this is the case for most small families. Most US families have one, two or three closely spaced children. This lets families use the same sets of toys, equipment and clothing more easily and lets them donate or sell the clothing they don't need any more. By comparison, large families have multiple children in each age category so they've got the toys needed to entertain visiting kids of any age.
5) Fitting 15 people in my home will not be comfortable for anyone!
If we had a nice day in the late spring, summer or early fall, I have enough space in my very large yards that we could host a family of 15 outside easily enough. I probably even have enough quilts for all of the kids to be able to sit on blankets in the yard for dinner. This is the first time in my life, though, where I had that large of an entertainment space available. My parents' house could not fit 15 people plus the five of us in the yard. The apartment I rented as a single adult certainly didn't have space for 15 people outside - and we didn't have a community center for rent, either.
Now, if the weather turns cold, very windy, snowy or rainy. we're screwed. I know that CP/QF homes work by having every available space ready to be used of kids of all possible ages; that is not how my house works!
I theoretically have five downstairs rooms available for use - but four of those 'rooms' are an L-shaped pseudo-open plan office-kitchen-dining-room-living room. The office is a poorly built addition that lacks enough insulation or any connection to the HVAC system so it's cold in the winter and hot in the summer. The kitchen and dining room used to have a wall between them, but someone knocked the wall years ago. At the same time, they removed the only gravity return vent for the HVAC system to return cold air from the second story to the furnace; to use the upstairs, we had to run a new gravity vent up through a pre-existing strangely placed closet in the living room. Fitting 18 people into the main room would be unpleasant. We have a bathroom on the first floor and we do have a single bedroom next to the bathroom that is serving as a craft-laundry-dressing room for my husband and I. Having that area ready for use for board games of all ages would give everyone just enough room to fit and be reasonably comfortable - but I don't want to go through the work of cleaning out that whole room on top of doubling my cooking time.
KimC's dad's method of inviting small families over to the large family's house makes a ton of sense. Adding three people to a family of 15 is much more manageable financially and logistically.
So - that's why the invites tend to be one directional; small families can be literally overwhelmed at all of the extra work and money needed to host a huge family.
I'm sorry. I lost most of the answer because I was panic sweating at the thought of hosting a family of 15 or more at my house.
*begins deep breathing while reminding myself I don't know anyone with 13 children IRL*
Let's tackle the reasons I can think of:
1) Inviting KimC's family over for a dinner will blow my food budget.
Right now, my family consists of two adults and one preschooler. When I cook dinners, we consume around 4 servings - two for my husband, one for me, plus a serving that my son will be given a tiny amount, probably not eat that serving, but my husband or I will eat the rest of for breakfast or lunch the next day. I make a lot of casseroles and sheet pan meals that are around 12 servings total. When we eat every meal at home - which is very rare even during a pandemic - we need 2 casseroles a week with a day that my husband and I eat soup or salad from the pantry.
Invite KimC's family over and we need at least 18 servings for a single meal. That's 4.5 days of dinner for my family (which would include 3 single lunch servings). Cost-wise, dinners are the major spender on my food budget so that single meal consumes around 25% of my weekly food budget. That's assuming that everyone is satisfied with a single serving; that's pretty unlikely since people tend to eat more at social gatherings than when by themselves. If people average 1.5 servings each, we're going to need 27 servings which all of the food my family consumers for dinner in a week - and that's 50% of my food budget gone in one evening.
There have been times in the last few years where we literally could not afford to invite KimC's family over no matter how much we liked them; we just plain didn't have the money.
2) Inviting KimC's family over for dinner doubles my cooking time for the week.
I need an hour to prep and cook a casserole that will feed my family for half a week. Most of the time I make the two casseroles on two different days. That's two hours of food preparation time per week. Figure 15 minutes of shopping, 15 minutes of travel time and 15 minutes of cleaning up dishes used in the meal and for eating the casserole. That's roughly 3 hours of food preparation time for dinner weekly.
If I invite KimC's family over, I'd save a bit of time in making two identical casseroles at one so let's say that takes 1.25 hours. I'd still need 15 minutes to get the ingredients. I wouldn't gain any travel time - but doing all of the dishes created from that one dinner would take 30 minutes. That one dinner would take 2 hours to prep - but I'd still need to do roughly 3 hours of food prep to feed my family for the week.
3) Serving 18 people dinner at once would stretch my kitchen supplies to the breaking point.
I think I could do it - but there's no reserve left over. I would need to use both big casserole pans to make 27 servings. We own enough dishes and silverware for everyone to eat at once - but some people would be using plates while others used bowls and a person could have either a fork or a spoon and knife - but not both. I do not have enough glasses for everyone - so I'd need to purchase some disposable cups for drinks. Actually, I wouldn't invite that large of a crowd over without being able to purchase disposable cutlery and plates for everyone simply because using all of my dishes and silverware at once means we're going to be doing dishes for a few hours -and I don't want to.
4) There's never going to be a point where I have age-appropriate toys for all the age-groups in KimC's family.
Right now, I have toys available for kids between 0-5 years and teens. My son is three - but we've still got some baby toys floating around and some of his toys will interest older preschoolers or kindergarteners. Similarly, eventually kids are old enough to play the selection of board games we have available - but most of ours are geared more towards teens and adults like Scrabble or Apples to Apples. I don't have any of the games I remember playing in elementary or junior high like Clue, Sorry!, or Trouble. We also played Twister a lot; I'm going to assume that one is a no-go in CP/QF families because of the incidental physical contact. I don't have any sports toys for soccer, football, kickball or basketball which we played a lot as kids. We don't have a swing set for that age group although we do have a tractor tire sandbox.
I suspect this is the case for most small families. Most US families have one, two or three closely spaced children. This lets families use the same sets of toys, equipment and clothing more easily and lets them donate or sell the clothing they don't need any more. By comparison, large families have multiple children in each age category so they've got the toys needed to entertain visiting kids of any age.
5) Fitting 15 people in my home will not be comfortable for anyone!
If we had a nice day in the late spring, summer or early fall, I have enough space in my very large yards that we could host a family of 15 outside easily enough. I probably even have enough quilts for all of the kids to be able to sit on blankets in the yard for dinner. This is the first time in my life, though, where I had that large of an entertainment space available. My parents' house could not fit 15 people plus the five of us in the yard. The apartment I rented as a single adult certainly didn't have space for 15 people outside - and we didn't have a community center for rent, either.
Now, if the weather turns cold, very windy, snowy or rainy. we're screwed. I know that CP/QF homes work by having every available space ready to be used of kids of all possible ages; that is not how my house works!
I theoretically have five downstairs rooms available for use - but four of those 'rooms' are an L-shaped pseudo-open plan office-kitchen-dining-room-living room. The office is a poorly built addition that lacks enough insulation or any connection to the HVAC system so it's cold in the winter and hot in the summer. The kitchen and dining room used to have a wall between them, but someone knocked the wall years ago. At the same time, they removed the only gravity return vent for the HVAC system to return cold air from the second story to the furnace; to use the upstairs, we had to run a new gravity vent up through a pre-existing strangely placed closet in the living room. Fitting 18 people into the main room would be unpleasant. We have a bathroom on the first floor and we do have a single bedroom next to the bathroom that is serving as a craft-laundry-dressing room for my husband and I. Having that area ready for use for board games of all ages would give everyone just enough room to fit and be reasonably comfortable - but I don't want to go through the work of cleaning out that whole room on top of doubling my cooking time.
KimC's dad's method of inviting small families over to the large family's house makes a ton of sense. Adding three people to a family of 15 is much more manageable financially and logistically.
So - that's why the invites tend to be one directional; small families can be literally overwhelmed at all of the extra work and money needed to host a huge family.
Thursday, May 7, 2020
The Battle Of Peer Dependence: Chapter Four- Part One
Parenting a three-year old during COVID-19 is a slog of "no, we can't do that." The playland at McDonald's is closed; we can't play there. One set of grandparents might have been exposed to COVID-19; we can't go see them for a few weeks. Yes, we can walk at the park, but the swing set is closed. My husband and I are both employed and getting tons of hours - so we're doing much better than many - but trying to explain why things are closed to a little boy is tricky.
Explaining that is tricky - but at least I don't lose my entire mind and blame a completely unrelated topic for my son's mild distress. In "The Battle of Peer Dependence", Marina Sears takes her youngest son's transient disappointment about being young and decides that the entire problem is caused by her older sons having friends:
For context, Jeff is the son born several months after his father Jeff was killed in a car accident. At the time of the fatal accident Chris was 7 years old, David was 5 years old, and Camille was one year old. Marina leaves out the ages of any of the boys in this anecdote - but basic math implies that the age gap between the older two boys and Jeff places a large developmental gap between the three of them. If Jeff was 5, Chris would be 12 and David 10. If Jeff was was 7, the other boys would be 14 and 12. There would be a chunk of time where Jeff was genuinely too physically small and uncoordinated to be able to play volleyball safely with his older brothers' friends.
The weird thing for me is that Jeff is really clear on the fact that he's upset that he's younger than his older brothers - and Marina's response misses Jeff's entire lament. Jeff is understandably upset that he's too young to go with his brothers - but that will not be the case forever! By the time Jeff is 12, his older brothers will be 19 and 17; adding a 12 year old to a pick-up game of volleyball among older teens is much more reasonable than adding a kindergarten kid to a junior high volleyball game. Once Jeff is an adult, Chris and David will also be adults - and the developmental gaps will be gone.
Instead, Mrs. Sears decides that the fact that the older boys have friends is the real issue - and that's crazy! Yes. most kids hang out with people within 2-3 years of age; that's a feature, not a bug. Children go through so many relatively rapid developmental phases before age 15 that hanging out with kids 4-5 years younger is not challenging or stimulating for the older kid - and can be frustrating and overwhelming for the younger kid.
This gets more bonkers if we run through the situation assuming Jeff is a first-grader.
Let's say that Chris (14) and David (12) decided to bring Jeff (7) along to the volleyball game. How is this supposed to work? Junior high teens can serve underhand (and possibly overhand) on a full-sized court and net. Most will be able to bump for defense and spike at the net. Some lucky souls will be able to set - and some will set accurately for a spike. Jeff....might be able to bump with little control. Maybe. He's not going to be able to serve over the net, spike or set. How much fun is Jeff going to have as he learns that he's not good at volleyball because he's too young to chalk his lack of skills up to age?
On the other hand, are the older kids supposed to play down to Jeff's level? How is that fair to the older kids who are now playing volleyball on a short net with a shortened field trying to not use all of their skills because Mrs. Sears doesn't want to deal with her youngest child feeling left out?
I've noticed on CP/QF mommy-blogs the authors pull out that families should bring parents and younger siblings to older siblings' outings. I assume this is because the women unconsciously assume that their younger children will benefit from being around more advanced kids - no matter how obnoxious or inconvenient it is for the hosts to have 3-7 younger kids and adults show up at an activity. I also think the "full family attendance" families buy the line that since their younger kids hang around a wide age of people their younger kids are more mature than the "other" younger kids. This has not held true in my limited experience. The part that amuses me is that those same mommy-bloggers don't seem to hold their younger kids' activities to the same rules. There's a level of cool social transgression to bring a pile of elementary school aged and preschool aged kids to a junior high arts class. After all, the subtext is that the junior high kids' experience is unchanged by having their siblings around - and the younger kids are being exposed to something advanced. Oddly enough, dragging a pile of high schoolers and older elementary school kids to a preschool story time feels less counter-cultural than completely oblivious to social norms. I suppose that's because it's hard to explain how a 16 year old benefits from reading "Quiet and LOUD" in a group read-along after the group sang songs while playing with scarfs and recited a rhyme together.
Do people make poor choices in peer groups? Of course - but people make horrible choices in family groups as well - just ask the Dnggars or any of the other CP/QF families that have abuse occurring within a family.
Ms. Sears is trying to raise her family after a terrible tragedy. My heart goes out to her - but her methods of controlling her kids do more harm than good.
Explaining that is tricky - but at least I don't lose my entire mind and blame a completely unrelated topic for my son's mild distress. In "The Battle of Peer Dependence", Marina Sears takes her youngest son's transient disappointment about being young and decides that the entire problem is caused by her older sons having friends:
For context, Jeff is the son born several months after his father Jeff was killed in a car accident. At the time of the fatal accident Chris was 7 years old, David was 5 years old, and Camille was one year old. Marina leaves out the ages of any of the boys in this anecdote - but basic math implies that the age gap between the older two boys and Jeff places a large developmental gap between the three of them. If Jeff was 5, Chris would be 12 and David 10. If Jeff was was 7, the other boys would be 14 and 12. There would be a chunk of time where Jeff was genuinely too physically small and uncoordinated to be able to play volleyball safely with his older brothers' friends.
The weird thing for me is that Jeff is really clear on the fact that he's upset that he's younger than his older brothers - and Marina's response misses Jeff's entire lament. Jeff is understandably upset that he's too young to go with his brothers - but that will not be the case forever! By the time Jeff is 12, his older brothers will be 19 and 17; adding a 12 year old to a pick-up game of volleyball among older teens is much more reasonable than adding a kindergarten kid to a junior high volleyball game. Once Jeff is an adult, Chris and David will also be adults - and the developmental gaps will be gone.
Instead, Mrs. Sears decides that the fact that the older boys have friends is the real issue - and that's crazy! Yes. most kids hang out with people within 2-3 years of age; that's a feature, not a bug. Children go through so many relatively rapid developmental phases before age 15 that hanging out with kids 4-5 years younger is not challenging or stimulating for the older kid - and can be frustrating and overwhelming for the younger kid.
This gets more bonkers if we run through the situation assuming Jeff is a first-grader.
Let's say that Chris (14) and David (12) decided to bring Jeff (7) along to the volleyball game. How is this supposed to work? Junior high teens can serve underhand (and possibly overhand) on a full-sized court and net. Most will be able to bump for defense and spike at the net. Some lucky souls will be able to set - and some will set accurately for a spike. Jeff....might be able to bump with little control. Maybe. He's not going to be able to serve over the net, spike or set. How much fun is Jeff going to have as he learns that he's not good at volleyball because he's too young to chalk his lack of skills up to age?
On the other hand, are the older kids supposed to play down to Jeff's level? How is that fair to the older kids who are now playing volleyball on a short net with a shortened field trying to not use all of their skills because Mrs. Sears doesn't want to deal with her youngest child feeling left out?
I've noticed on CP/QF mommy-blogs the authors pull out that families should bring parents and younger siblings to older siblings' outings. I assume this is because the women unconsciously assume that their younger children will benefit from being around more advanced kids - no matter how obnoxious or inconvenient it is for the hosts to have 3-7 younger kids and adults show up at an activity. I also think the "full family attendance" families buy the line that since their younger kids hang around a wide age of people their younger kids are more mature than the "other" younger kids. This has not held true in my limited experience. The part that amuses me is that those same mommy-bloggers don't seem to hold their younger kids' activities to the same rules. There's a level of cool social transgression to bring a pile of elementary school aged and preschool aged kids to a junior high arts class. After all, the subtext is that the junior high kids' experience is unchanged by having their siblings around - and the younger kids are being exposed to something advanced. Oddly enough, dragging a pile of high schoolers and older elementary school kids to a preschool story time feels less counter-cultural than completely oblivious to social norms. I suppose that's because it's hard to explain how a 16 year old benefits from reading "Quiet and LOUD" in a group read-along after the group sang songs while playing with scarfs and recited a rhyme together.
Do people make poor choices in peer groups? Of course - but people make horrible choices in family groups as well - just ask the Dnggars or any of the other CP/QF families that have abuse occurring within a family.
Ms. Sears is trying to raise her family after a terrible tragedy. My heart goes out to her - but her methods of controlling her kids do more harm than good.
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Joyfully At Home: Chapter Thirteen - Part Two
Oh, my dear readers, I am so excited to share THIS post with you!
I don't often remember the details of when I read a section of a book for the first time - but I remember this one. "Joyfully At Home" by Jasmine Baucham had been a bit of a slog for me to read through - but I had decided that I was going to finish it. It was a cold, snowy winter night and I decided to read it curled up in bed next to my husband. (I am lucky to have a husband who can sleep with my bedside lamp on.) I plowed through Chapter 13 - and that chapter had enough crazy attempts to ignore the financial issues that a SAHD will face if she's unmarried when her parents died that I decided reviewing the book was worth it. I started reading Chapter 14 and was a bit confused as to why Jasmine was still attempting to refute the obvious idea that women may well need to support themselves at some point when we hit this lovely quote:
I burst out laughing so hard that I woke my husband up. I gave him a quick recap of Jasmine's living situation at the time and read him that quote. We both agreed that Jasmine was living in a warped fantasy world....and he went back to sleep.
Reality check time:
Jasmine Baucham wrote this as a fully fledged adult who had a high school diploma and was 19 years old. The local church would certainly be in a place to help her - but expecting a congregation to sacrifice to support Jasmine as a SAHD until she marries is financially unsustainable. Sarah Mally, for example, is 41 years old and Sarah Maxwell is 38 - are congregations supposed to have line items in the budget for several hundred dollars a week to go their mothers to support able-bodied adult women in upper-middle class comfort until they marry? How would that even work?
Instead, let's think about what help in this situation would have looked like historically. Jasmine, after all, has stated several times that she wants a return to a Biblically mandated society.
Biblically speaking, Jasmine would have been married off quickly to an available man. Forget all of the CP/QF obsession with the eligible man who shares the right spiritual beliefs and is ready to be a priest, prophet, protector and provider - the correct man for her to marry would be a man who was looking for a wife and able to remove her from the church charity rolls. That's a very different man than the imaginary husband who will be able to keep her and their children in upper middle class comfort without Jasmine working. The real husband of orphaned Jasmine might well be working two jobs to keep the two of them in a manufactured home in a trailer park. Adding kids means Jasmine starts working night shifts at the local grocery store to feed everyone.
Practically, a church would expect modern Jasmine to go to work. Most families in an average CP/QF congregation have daughters who work outside the home as nannies or mother's helpers. Families who are financially struggling may well have daughters working in food service or retail - and Jasmine would likely end up working there until she completed her college education. Voddie Baucham may well have enjoyed being able to show off that he made enough money to keep his unmarried daughter out of the workforce in middle-class comfort - but churches can't be expected to continue that conceit for deceased members.
I was hoping young Jasmine would bring up 1 Timothy because 1 Timothy 5 shows that the early Church was already struggling to provide for all of the needs of widows and orphans - and placed some pretty hard and fast limits on charity. 1 Timothy 5:3-5 starts by stating categorically that the grown children and grandchildren of widows are responsible for supporting widows in their families. The next two verses lay out that good widows pray a lot and bad widows party a lot. 1 Timothy 8 in the context of the chapter is not directed husbands or fathers; instead, it is aimed at the children and grandchildren of elderly widows. Historically, that emphasis on children and grandchildren makes sense since living offspring were the only form of insurance that women had after their husband died.
1 Timothy 5:9-15 is far more pertinent to rebutting Ms. Baucham's arguments. A widow should be supported by the church if she fits all of the following criteria:
I don't often remember the details of when I read a section of a book for the first time - but I remember this one. "Joyfully At Home" by Jasmine Baucham had been a bit of a slog for me to read through - but I had decided that I was going to finish it. It was a cold, snowy winter night and I decided to read it curled up in bed next to my husband. (I am lucky to have a husband who can sleep with my bedside lamp on.) I plowed through Chapter 13 - and that chapter had enough crazy attempts to ignore the financial issues that a SAHD will face if she's unmarried when her parents died that I decided reviewing the book was worth it. I started reading Chapter 14 and was a bit confused as to why Jasmine was still attempting to refute the obvious idea that women may well need to support themselves at some point when we hit this lovely quote:
I burst out laughing so hard that I woke my husband up. I gave him a quick recap of Jasmine's living situation at the time and read him that quote. We both agreed that Jasmine was living in a warped fantasy world....and he went back to sleep.
Reality check time:
Jasmine Baucham wrote this as a fully fledged adult who had a high school diploma and was 19 years old. The local church would certainly be in a place to help her - but expecting a congregation to sacrifice to support Jasmine as a SAHD until she marries is financially unsustainable. Sarah Mally, for example, is 41 years old and Sarah Maxwell is 38 - are congregations supposed to have line items in the budget for several hundred dollars a week to go their mothers to support able-bodied adult women in upper-middle class comfort until they marry? How would that even work?
Instead, let's think about what help in this situation would have looked like historically. Jasmine, after all, has stated several times that she wants a return to a Biblically mandated society.
Biblically speaking, Jasmine would have been married off quickly to an available man. Forget all of the CP/QF obsession with the eligible man who shares the right spiritual beliefs and is ready to be a priest, prophet, protector and provider - the correct man for her to marry would be a man who was looking for a wife and able to remove her from the church charity rolls. That's a very different man than the imaginary husband who will be able to keep her and their children in upper middle class comfort without Jasmine working. The real husband of orphaned Jasmine might well be working two jobs to keep the two of them in a manufactured home in a trailer park. Adding kids means Jasmine starts working night shifts at the local grocery store to feed everyone.
Practically, a church would expect modern Jasmine to go to work. Most families in an average CP/QF congregation have daughters who work outside the home as nannies or mother's helpers. Families who are financially struggling may well have daughters working in food service or retail - and Jasmine would likely end up working there until she completed her college education. Voddie Baucham may well have enjoyed being able to show off that he made enough money to keep his unmarried daughter out of the workforce in middle-class comfort - but churches can't be expected to continue that conceit for deceased members.
I was hoping young Jasmine would bring up 1 Timothy because 1 Timothy 5 shows that the early Church was already struggling to provide for all of the needs of widows and orphans - and placed some pretty hard and fast limits on charity. 1 Timothy 5:3-5 starts by stating categorically that the grown children and grandchildren of widows are responsible for supporting widows in their families. The next two verses lay out that good widows pray a lot and bad widows party a lot. 1 Timothy 8 in the context of the chapter is not directed husbands or fathers; instead, it is aimed at the children and grandchildren of elderly widows. Historically, that emphasis on children and grandchildren makes sense since living offspring were the only form of insurance that women had after their husband died.
1 Timothy 5:9-15 is far more pertinent to rebutting Ms. Baucham's arguments. A widow should be supported by the church if she fits all of the following criteria:
- Is over 60 years of age
- Has been faithful to her husband
- Is known for good deeds
With the emphasis on family caring for widows in the earlier section of 1 Timothy 5, we can add a 4th requirement:
4. Has no surviving children or grandchildren for financial support
4. Has no surviving children or grandchildren for financial support
Now, Jasmine was 19 when she was writing this book and 20 when it was published. She's also mentioned on her blog that she was conceived in the first month after her parents married. Since a previous chapter mentioned that her mom was 23 when she got married, we can estimate that her mom was 23 years at marriage + 1 year of pregnancy + 20 years of raising Jasmine = 44 years old at the time of publishing.
This means that if Voddie Baucham had passed away unexpectedly neither his widow nor his daughter would have been old enough to be supported by the church.
What would have happened instead? 1 Timothy 5:14 states that younger widows should remarry. Remember, marriage was the primary way of organizing labor and family connections in the ancient world. Telling a young widow to remarry was the same thing as saying that she needed to remain in the workforce until she was older.
Long story short: the Biblical and modern answers to the question of "what will happen if your dad dies?" are the same: you need to be willing and able to be employable.
This means that if Voddie Baucham had passed away unexpectedly neither his widow nor his daughter would have been old enough to be supported by the church.
What would have happened instead? 1 Timothy 5:14 states that younger widows should remarry. Remember, marriage was the primary way of organizing labor and family connections in the ancient world. Telling a young widow to remarry was the same thing as saying that she needed to remain in the workforce until she was older.
Long story short: the Biblical and modern answers to the question of "what will happen if your dad dies?" are the same: you need to be willing and able to be employable.
Monday, April 20, 2020
The Battle Of Peer Dependency: Chapter Three - Part Five
In broader Christian life, people are supposed to put God first, others second, and themselves last. Swap out "God" for "Jesus" and you get the acronym "JOY". Plenty has been written about the dangers of placing seven billion people's needs in front of your own needs - but Christians pretty solidly agree that following the will of God should be first.
Well, Marina Sears in her opus "The Battle of Peer Dependency" repeatedly demonstrates that CP/QF families expect their children to place the desires of the parents first, God second, and everyone else in the universe last:
Mrs. Sears sets up this entire chapter leading to a climax where she realizes that she's lost the heart of her son to peer dependency - and the implication is that any response from parents no matter how draconian is legitimate to make the child or teenager give their heart back to the parent.
That was her intent, but the story as written makes her seem deranged.
I hope in real life she had taken some time to lead into a loaded question with her son before tossing "Do I have your heart?" at him - but as written - she may well have thrown the question at him while shopping, or doing laundry or passing in the hallway.
More broadly, the first correct answer should have been "Yes, you have my heart, mother!" rather than declaring allegiance to God above all others or explaining that under Biblical principles the teenager was an adult responsible for his life choices before God starting at age 13 - so it would immoral for him to give his heart to his mother. His mother clearly throws the question about God out as a frantic attempt to regain mastery of the situation - but the fact that obedience to God is a secondary concern permeates the entire story. The invocation of Malachi 4:5-6 is unintentionally ironic given Mrs. Sears' placement of God as less important than herself; Malachi 4 is a standard warning from a prophet that people are drifting away from worship of the Lord and that divine smiting is approaching again. The declaration of parents and children turning to each other means nothing outside of the fact that parents teach their children how to obey the Law - and teaching children encourages parents to obey the Law as well.
Including Proverbs 23:26 shows CP/QF's sloppy methodology of reading comprehension; that verse is the beginning of a parental decree that young men don't have sex with prostitutes and don't marry young women who will cheat on them. While good advice, it's not exactly groundbreaking in terms of parental advice - and certainly not a huge thrust of Christian life.
The frantic questions that Mrs. Sears asks herself about how she can change her son's heart are both touching and disturbing at the same time. The questions are heartbreaking because the questions echo the pathos of parents who see that their children are on a dangerous path but are unable to stop the choices being made by the older teen or adult child. Those same questions take on a disturbing patina, however, when directed at a young teen or tween by a parent who literally controls everything in that person's life. Mrs. Sears had effectively isolated her children from every outside influence that could provide some grounding outside of her personal desires. She is their teacher - and their mother - and the person who keeps her children away from outside families in their church. The same wrenching questions asked by a parent whose child is spiralling into mental illness or criminal behavior become sinister when the parent is asking the questions of a healthy, law-abiding teen who wants to play volleyball with his friends and listen to pop music.
The last quote that we'll discuss from this chapter is proffered as a way to test of a child is peer-dependent. Honestly, the activities discussed here remind me far more of a cult leader assessing if their followers are suitably dependent on them or a domestic abuser trying to see if they have adequate control over their victims than normal parent-child behavior:
"Hello, family. This is your Beloved Leader speaking. All peer activities will be canceled this week. Everything here is happy and neutral* here!"
That is a level of behavior and emotional control that I have not expected out of my child since he was around 4 months old.
Why 4 months? That's about when he started to figure out that he was a separate person from me.
I do expect my son to eventually go along with decisions he doesn't like - but I always explain why (as best I can) in an age-appropriate method and I accept that "going along" doesn't mean "be happy about the decision".
For example, I went to a new park with him that had paved walking/biking paths so he could use his walker. I hadn't realized that the park had several playground areas scattered about. My son really wanted to go play on the playground - especially the one that was perfectly preschooler sized - but we couldn't because public play equipment is closed under the current stay-at-home order.
He's way too young to understand COVID-19 so I told him we couldn't play because that area was closed. Spawn was angry-sad and he threw a tiny temper tantrum. (He actually picked up his walker and slammed it back onto the ground; I was impressed at his motor control while pissed off).
I told him that I wanted to play there too - but we couldn't right now - and look, there's an area where like 7 paved paths come together....wouldn't that be fun in a walker? He took off towards the merged paths area - which is all I ever expect in terms of "going along".
I didn't declare that his feelings were a sign that he was peer-dependent because 1)he's not; he's not quite into cooperative play yet and 2) I accept that he's needs more than being attached to me for his entire life.
Teaching your kids that any authority figure should be obeyed unquestioningly when giving harmful orders without any rationale is seductive if you want to control them. Remember, though, that a parent who raises their kids like that is also raising their kids to be extremely attractive to abusive people. Abusers are attracted to docile people who don't make a fuss when you isolate them from friends and family.......
*Yes, I've been watching "Tiger King" on Netflix - a story of 2-3 cults depending on how you class a cult. For people who haven't watched, there's a guy named "Doc" Antle who is the head of a polygamous cult that supports itself by breeding tiger cubs and getting a lot of money from photo ops and cub petting. There's a whole ton of cult-speak that spews out of Antle - but the point where he describes everyone as being "happy and neutral" was pretty much the moment that I said "Yup, that's the money-line for every cult."
Well, Marina Sears in her opus "The Battle of Peer Dependency" repeatedly demonstrates that CP/QF families expect their children to place the desires of the parents first, God second, and everyone else in the universe last:
Mrs. Sears sets up this entire chapter leading to a climax where she realizes that she's lost the heart of her son to peer dependency - and the implication is that any response from parents no matter how draconian is legitimate to make the child or teenager give their heart back to the parent.
That was her intent, but the story as written makes her seem deranged.
I hope in real life she had taken some time to lead into a loaded question with her son before tossing "Do I have your heart?" at him - but as written - she may well have thrown the question at him while shopping, or doing laundry or passing in the hallway.
More broadly, the first correct answer should have been "Yes, you have my heart, mother!" rather than declaring allegiance to God above all others or explaining that under Biblical principles the teenager was an adult responsible for his life choices before God starting at age 13 - so it would immoral for him to give his heart to his mother. His mother clearly throws the question about God out as a frantic attempt to regain mastery of the situation - but the fact that obedience to God is a secondary concern permeates the entire story. The invocation of Malachi 4:5-6 is unintentionally ironic given Mrs. Sears' placement of God as less important than herself; Malachi 4 is a standard warning from a prophet that people are drifting away from worship of the Lord and that divine smiting is approaching again. The declaration of parents and children turning to each other means nothing outside of the fact that parents teach their children how to obey the Law - and teaching children encourages parents to obey the Law as well.
Including Proverbs 23:26 shows CP/QF's sloppy methodology of reading comprehension; that verse is the beginning of a parental decree that young men don't have sex with prostitutes and don't marry young women who will cheat on them. While good advice, it's not exactly groundbreaking in terms of parental advice - and certainly not a huge thrust of Christian life.
The frantic questions that Mrs. Sears asks herself about how she can change her son's heart are both touching and disturbing at the same time. The questions are heartbreaking because the questions echo the pathos of parents who see that their children are on a dangerous path but are unable to stop the choices being made by the older teen or adult child. Those same questions take on a disturbing patina, however, when directed at a young teen or tween by a parent who literally controls everything in that person's life. Mrs. Sears had effectively isolated her children from every outside influence that could provide some grounding outside of her personal desires. She is their teacher - and their mother - and the person who keeps her children away from outside families in their church. The same wrenching questions asked by a parent whose child is spiralling into mental illness or criminal behavior become sinister when the parent is asking the questions of a healthy, law-abiding teen who wants to play volleyball with his friends and listen to pop music.
The last quote that we'll discuss from this chapter is proffered as a way to test of a child is peer-dependent. Honestly, the activities discussed here remind me far more of a cult leader assessing if their followers are suitably dependent on them or a domestic abuser trying to see if they have adequate control over their victims than normal parent-child behavior:
"Hello, family. This is your Beloved Leader speaking. All peer activities will be canceled this week. Everything here is happy and neutral* here!"
That is a level of behavior and emotional control that I have not expected out of my child since he was around 4 months old.
Why 4 months? That's about when he started to figure out that he was a separate person from me.
I do expect my son to eventually go along with decisions he doesn't like - but I always explain why (as best I can) in an age-appropriate method and I accept that "going along" doesn't mean "be happy about the decision".
For example, I went to a new park with him that had paved walking/biking paths so he could use his walker. I hadn't realized that the park had several playground areas scattered about. My son really wanted to go play on the playground - especially the one that was perfectly preschooler sized - but we couldn't because public play equipment is closed under the current stay-at-home order.
He's way too young to understand COVID-19 so I told him we couldn't play because that area was closed. Spawn was angry-sad and he threw a tiny temper tantrum. (He actually picked up his walker and slammed it back onto the ground; I was impressed at his motor control while pissed off).
I told him that I wanted to play there too - but we couldn't right now - and look, there's an area where like 7 paved paths come together....wouldn't that be fun in a walker? He took off towards the merged paths area - which is all I ever expect in terms of "going along".
I didn't declare that his feelings were a sign that he was peer-dependent because 1)he's not; he's not quite into cooperative play yet and 2) I accept that he's needs more than being attached to me for his entire life.
Teaching your kids that any authority figure should be obeyed unquestioningly when giving harmful orders without any rationale is seductive if you want to control them. Remember, though, that a parent who raises their kids like that is also raising their kids to be extremely attractive to abusive people. Abusers are attracted to docile people who don't make a fuss when you isolate them from friends and family.......
*Yes, I've been watching "Tiger King" on Netflix - a story of 2-3 cults depending on how you class a cult. For people who haven't watched, there's a guy named "Doc" Antle who is the head of a polygamous cult that supports itself by breeding tiger cubs and getting a lot of money from photo ops and cub petting. There's a whole ton of cult-speak that spews out of Antle - but the point where he describes everyone as being "happy and neutral" was pretty much the moment that I said "Yup, that's the money-line for every cult."
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