I feel bad for Kendal's daughters

[almostfundylyte]

I'm wondering how old the daughter is too. You know what makes me want to barf? The notion that only girls should keep house, do laundry, and change diapers. Men need to know that shit too.

My husband had never changed a diaper until our second was born. (First child is mine from a previous relationship.). Husband now changes more diapers than I do. Oldest is 10, but I don't expect him to change diapers at all. Not because he's a boy, but because the baby is his brother, not his child.

[Carla Bruni]

I really do not understand this helpmeet/SAHM/SAHD mentality of "I'm so much better than you because I have domestic/parental skills". Whoop de fucking doo - it's called being an adult! I don't have kids, so I can't comment on the difficulty of that part from firsthand experience, but I'm always baffled by this idea of instilling domestic skills in daughters in lieu of an actual education. There are seemingly thousands of blog entries and blog comments about how someone's daughter is spending all day being taught how to make a "homemaking binder" (wtf is in there?) and flip pancakes and do laundry. I was somehow taught how to run a household, manage finances, cook, clean, and take care of animals whilst attending public school and doing sports. Funny how that worked out - it might be because it's a) pretty fuckin' simple and b) what every responsible adult of any gender should know how to do.

[DistantStar]

I am eight years older than my brother, and I did change some of his diapers -- wet ones only, that I can remember. Also, since our dad was overseas for a year during his infancy (thanks, USAF) it was me, my mom, and him. I was never, ever made to do anything with him along the lines of diapers or feeding, but I sure wanted to, and did a fair amount. I'd even get him up early on Saturdays since I was up anyway and give him a bottle so Mom could sleep in. We had fun, he was a happy baby in the morning.

But this was all voluntary! And I never though I would do nothing in my life but take care of babies. I was helping Mom because I wanted to, not doing her job for her. He was my baby brother and one damn cute baby and I loved doing stuff with him. Totally different mindset. And of course I went to eeeeeebil public school so was away for a fair amount of the day anyway.

I am painfully out of practice with babies but I'm sure I could pick up a lot quickly if I had to. This is not deep intellectual stuff. Neither is housecleaning which I despise, but do when I have to. And honestly a lot of fundie parental skills are pretty suspect, with the Pearls talking about beating babies and all. I suspect that real-world parental skills a) vary with each kid, as they are all different, imagine that and b) require a hell of a lot more creativity and patience than Pearl-type "techniques." Isn't there an awful lot that has to be learned on the job with each child, assuming you aren't shoving them out so fast you can't keep up and foist them off on their older siblings?

[PopRox]

News flash for the fundies- being a homemaker is not that hard. Hell, even parenting is not that hard. As long as the kid is adequately fed, clothed, and housed, and you love them and keep them safe, you're good. Most of it is instinct. I was a teen mom, and my kid is turning out great (so far)....

Most of the fundies we discuss seem to have a really hard time keeping their kids fed and safe... and I feel doubtful that a few of them (like Kendal) even love their kids at all.

For people who claim that parenting is doing God's work, a lot of them they sure do suck at it.

[Rowan]

It's amazing that the rest of us manage to change our children's diapers regularly (and mess free) without having spent years of our childhoods training for it...

Years of childhood training for it and a shorter time in adulthood actually doing it if my calculations are correct. Her oldest will have 10+ years of "training" while caring for her mother's progeny while she will only have 6-8 years of actual "motherhood" work until her oldest (if it is a girl) is ready to do her own "training." :roll:

[NotALoserLikeYou]

Kendal's daughters will all rebel. One, she hasn't isolated them from the world enough, and two, she's a mean person. She is controlling and snaps and yells. And of course she hits. Those girls will take off and work/date etc.

[jenny_islander]

It's amazing that the rest of us manage to change our children's diapers regularly (and mess free) without having spent years of our childhoods training for it...

Isn't that the way with just about all of these "keepers at home?" They make a big huge production about taking years to "train up" their children to do stuff that I picked up in under six months with the aid of a college student's basic housekeeping guide and a baby book. Diaper changing took me a few days. I kept my first baby's little butt wrapped in receiving blankets and parked her on a chux pad when I wasn't holding her until I was pretty sure I wasn't leaving gaps anymore. It took me about a year to teach myself to cook (my mother had alcoholism so she couldn't and my mother-in-law gave me some very useful tips but she was mostly bedridden). Balancing my accounts? My sister wrote me a letter to explain how that worked. Basic housecleaning was a matter of looking in the index for the directions.

Sure, my girls have chores. But I'm not pretending that they have to have a full-time education in this stuff starting right now. It's important if we don't want to end up living in a pigsty, but it isn't rocket science.

[desertvixen]

I really do not understand this helpmeet/SAHM/SAHD mentality of "I'm so much better than you because I have domestic/parental skills". Whoop de fucking doo - it's called being an adult! I don't have kids, so I can't comment on the difficulty of that part from firsthand experience, but I'm always baffled by this idea of instilling domestic skills in daughters in lieu of an actual education. There are seemingly thousands of blog entries and blog comments about how someone's daughter is spending all day being taught how to make a "homemaking binder" (wtf is in there?) and flip pancakes and do laundry. I was somehow taught how to run a household, manage finances, cook, clean, and take care of animals whilst attending public school and doing sports. Funny how that worked out - it might be because it's a) pretty fuckin' simple and b) what every responsible adult of any gender should know how to do.

This, entirely. Are there some household skills I wished I'd learned more thoroughly at home? Yes. Yet somehow I managed to learn them and run a household and work.

[NurseNell]

This, entirely. Are there some household skills I wished I'd learned more thoroughly at home? Yes. Yet somehow I managed to learn them and run a household and work.

If you went to an ebil publik skool in New York state you had to take homemaking in 7th and 8th grade, it was required. And we even had to learn to make an apron in 7th grade, a blouse in 8th grade. We learned to change diapers, heat up bottles, make formula (no premixed stuff then). Weird, no mention of breast feeding, this was late 1950's. How to give a baby a bath. We learned oh so many useful things. Then we had 13 weeks of shop and learned how to make things out of wood.

[Jiraffe Jirl]

I wonder if these people will ever realize that forcing their daughters to do so much homemaking at such a young age actually seems to be making them less likely to want to marry and have a large brood. Back in junior high I babysat for a family about 25 hours a week (I was homeschooled), and then did childcare at a fitness center for a few years. By the time I quit I was SO done with children. Had I been forced to be on diaper, cooking, and cleaning duty full time I would have been so burned out by the time I was old enough to have my own, which I suspect a lot of these SAHD secretly are.

[ladyaudley]

my mother enjoys telling the story of how she brought me home (she was only 21 at the time) and thought "well, this isn't so difficult." Then wondered why I wouldn't stop crying the next morning and realised she had forgotten to change my diaper in the past 24h. So she set herself times to check for the first week, until it became routine ^^ But it didn't traumatise her or me, so all is well!

I think the poop stories stem from that being the only "edgy" thing Kendal et al will ever blog about in a light-hearted manner. Every other misbehaviour that other parents might find funny is just plain ol' disobedience in their eyes and will be used for an "educational" post, like TugboatCheryl's "Loving a rebellious child" series.