Average age at the Maxwell Weekly Church takes a nosedive

[gardenvarietycitizen]

...as not one, not two, but THREE babies make an appearance!

 

Of course there's Christina and Joshua, but there's also a Baby David, who apparently has suitably young parents who attend this thing, lest you think that the "Elderly" are there all by their lonesome.

 

But y'know, if you have Elderly, and Babies, and just average it out, we can kinda overlook the lack of (dare I say it ) Teenagers and Twenty-somethings, can't we? (Potentially eligible ones, that is. David's parents are presumably taken.)

[FloraDoraDolly]

Maybe David's parents have a grandma or a grandpa who lives in that nursing home. A lot of people visit their elderly family members on weekends.

[terranova]

I have a hard time snarking on Melanie and Anna and new (and new again) Mums. I have no idea what kind of parents they are in private, but seem to be more loving and caring 100x times than Teri and Steve. I'm glad to see both Mums wearing their babies. I kind of thought they'd be the type to just park them in a pushchair in a corner and let them cry.

[CanadianHippie]

I have a hard time snarking on Melanie and Anna and new (and new again) Mums. I have no idea what kind of parents they are in private, but seem to be more loving and caring 100x times than Teri and Steve. I'm glad to see both Mums wearing their babies. I kind of thought they'd be the type to just park them in a pushchair in a corner and let them cry.

If they did that the babies might give into their sinful nature!

[lilith]

I kind of picture them wearing them to keep them away from Steve.

Like the longer the mummy can hold onto the baby the longer it is her baby instead of the latest membermof the cult, and if they put them down for a minute Steve and Teri will have a chore pack around their necks in a heartbeat and be saving them from making an idol of their mother's cuddles.

[ElphabaGalinda]

Maybe David can be a friend for Joshua or Christina. I'd love for them to have friends outside their family. The elderly is pretty much as much interaction with the outside world as they're ever going to get in this cult.

[kpmom]

Hey! They actually called two of the elderly by their names! Minnie and Dolly!

Kudos to the FJer who called Steve out on referring to them as "the elderly". Even though he became very defensive, he obviously had a bit of a change of heart. Maybe he realized he's not all that far off from being referred to as elderly himself.

[Rosie]

Abby looks more like Nathan as she gets older.

[bananacat]

I have a hard time snarking on Melanie and Anna and new (and new again) Mums. I have no idea what kind of parents they are in private, but seem to be more loving and caring 100x times than Teri and Steve. I'm glad to see both Mums wearing their babies. I kind of thought they'd be the type to just park them in a pushchair in a corner and let them cry.

Just think about how badly they'll treat their kids in a just a few years and it will be much easier to snark on them. They'll get a dismal excuse for a homeschool education along with plenty of obedience training. They'll be crammed into tiny boxes based on their genitals, and the Christina especially will be constantly told that she's less than all the men around her and incapable of doing most things that men do. As soon as she's old enough, Christina will be changing diapers of her younger siblings and taking on way more chores than she can handle. They'll both be denied friends and fun and their days will be filled with all the worst parts of the Bible. I don't know why everyone is so eager to give them credit. Baby-wearing won't negate all the horrible things that they will do to their children.

[YPestis]

Just think about how badly they'll treat their kids in a just a few years and it will be much easier to snark on them. They'll get a dismal excuse for a homeschool education along with plenty of obedience training. They'll be crammed into tiny boxes based on their genitals, and the Christina especially will be constantly told that she's less than all the men around her and incapable of doing most things that men do. As soon as she's old enough, Christina will be changing diapers of her younger siblings and taking on way more chores than she can handle. They'll both be denied friends and fun and their days will be filled with all the worst parts of the Bible. I don't know why everyone is so eager to give them credit. Baby-wearing won't negate all the horrible things that they will do to their children.

There's some hope that Melanie will provide her children with a more fundie-lite upbringing. I think clothing speaks a lot about fundies and Melanie always appears to wear stylishly conservative clothing. The only time we saw her wear frumpers are when she's been given one and she wears it for the picture one time and never again. I get the feeling she's not as crazy as the Maxwells. She also has a family nearby and they attend church. Obviously, the Maxwells have had some influence on her, but she also brought her own ideas into the relationship. Her father is also a chiropractor (I think someone on the forum noted this), which implies education beyond the typical fundie minimal. I have hope that Melanie will allow her kids to have a better education than what the Maxwells have, to maybe even entertain the idea of college for her sons at least, maybe to let them float around with friends because she probably had some in church growing up. It's hard to say which way she'll go since her kids are so young, but I feel there's hope for her.

Christopher and Anna appear to be much more conservative. Anna dresses in frumpers and the two instituted this 'no-touch' rule.....I feel Anna may be the perfect Maxwell/Stepford wife for the family. She's very fundie already and Christopher appears to have go off the deep end as well (maybe influence of living at home all this time?). If I feel sorry for anyone, it's for their children. I'm glad the firstborn is a son...I hope they have more sons first. I feel that even fundie families realize the value of having daughters first since they are built-in, free help for younger kids. With multiple sons, maybe Christopher and Anna will feel the need to space out their children (less likely) or make their older sons do some chores (more likely). If nothing else, forcing their sons to clean and help mom will teach them to appreciate what women does and not to see certain things as "women's jobs". As for education and friends, I think they will go the way of the younger five Maxwell kids and self-teach through crappy textbooks and have pen-pal friends.

Those are my predictions. It's too early to tell what Elizabeth and Joseph will do. Given Elizabeth's fundie-lite upbringing, and Joseph's young age, I have hope that they will be less restrictive than any other Maxwell couples. They also live the furthest from the Mothership. Maybe they'll even sneak to a church once or twice!

[Guest Anonymous]

There's some hope that Melanie will provide her children with a more fundie-lite upbringing. I think clothing speaks a lot about fundies and Melanie always appears to wear stylishly conservative clothing.

I think their reading material says more.... I enlarged a recent photo on the Maxwell blog to see the book Abigail was reading and it turned out to be a 'teaching' story about how a little boy is punished for failing to have nice table manners. He gets down from the table to play with a toy without asking permission and so as a 'consequence' is told off and forbidden to come back to eat dessert - he has to play with his toy and miss out, while everyone else eats their pud... nice parenting example!

[WonderingInWA]

Well, and the fact that there was a photo maybe 2 years ago of Abigail wearing a chore pack -- even Melanie, as "hip" as she is, is drinking the Koolaid.

If her parents live nearby, is there a chance they take their kids to church with her parents? I wonder? Or do she and Nathan attend the Church of the Elderly every Sunday with the Maxwell family?

[YPestis]

Well, and the fact that there was a photo maybe 2 years ago of Abigail wearing a chore pack -- even Melanie, as "hip" as she is, is drinking the Koolaid.

If her parents live nearby, is there a chance they take their kids to church with her parents? I wonder? Or do she and Nathan attend the Church of the Elderly every Sunday with the Maxwell family?

Well, chorepacks as a tool can be useful for any family. If I had kids, I wouldn't mind getting them something to remind them to do chores. The Maxwells are crazy but they do have some practical ideas of how to run a large household. It's what made their products so popular. We don't know what types of chores Abigail does. Jinger was cooking daily for her entire family by the time she was 11 which I find is a pretty heavy workload for a young child. Melanie is lucky she has a small family and probably won't get too much bigger. Her girls, regardless of the type of parenting, will at least escape the level of drudgery seen in so many larger, fundie families. And I hope that Melanie's family is involved in her kids' lives. They may be a moderating factor in face of the Maxwell's craziness.

[YPestis]

I think their reading material says more.... I enlarged a recent photo on the Maxwell blog to see the book Abigail was reading and it turned out to be a 'teaching' story about how a little boy is punished for failing to have nice table manners. He gets down from the table to play with a toy without asking permission and so as a 'consequence' is told off and forbidden to come back to eat dessert - he has to play with his toy and miss out, while everyone else eats their pud... nice parenting example!

I'm not a parent so I'm not speaking from personal experience, but I don't find anything horrible in that story? I mean, I see ill behaved children and parents who tell their kids off for it and I get annoyed that there are no consequences. These kids just continue to run circles around their parents (and me). I sometimes want to scream at the parents to discipline their kids for their misbehavior while the parents just smile apologetically at me. Maybe I just have a low tolerance for bratty behavior.

Anyway, I don't see missing dessert as a horrible punishment for wondering away from the dinner table before people are done. Then again, I'm not a parent (yet). Maybe once I have my own children, I'll realize why parents raise their kids the way they do.

[FloraDoraDolly]

I'm not a parent so I'm not speaking from personal experience, but I don't find anything horrible in that story? I mean, I see ill behaved children and parents who tell their kids off for it and I get annoyed that there are no consequences. These kids just continue to run circles around their parents (and me). I sometimes want to scream at the parents to discipline their kids for their misbehavior while the parents just smile apologetically at me. Maybe I just have a low tolerance for bratty behavior.

Anyway, I don't see missing dessert as a horrible punishment for wondering away from the dinner table before people are done. Then again, I'm not a parent (yet). Maybe once I have my own children, I'll realize why parents raise their kids the way they do.

The story doesn't seem so bad to me, either. If a kid acts up at the dinner table, depriving him of dessert is a perfectly reasonable and natural consequence, IMO. I also see nothing wrong with using a story to teach a child how to behave during mealtimes. It's not like they're reading the Pearls and threatening to beat the kid with the plumbing line.

[Daenerys]

The story doesn't seem so bad to me, either. If a kid acts up at the dinner table, depriving him of dessert is a perfectly reasonable and natural consequence, IMO. I also see nothing wrong with using a story to teach a child how to behave during mealtimes. It's not like they're reading the Pearls and threatening to beat the kid with the plumbing line.

Fine by me. Dessert is a treat and you only get treats and nice things if you behave yourself. It's not like he didn't get any food.

[lilwriter85]

Was it the Maxwell family that once punished the boys by making them stay in the car while the rest of family ate at Taco Bell or something?

[lilith]

I don't have an issue with the consequence shown in the book.

I do wonder if the little Maxwell girls ever get to read books that don't stress consequences for bad behavior and aren't training tools.

There is nothing wrong with books with a message for kids, but there is also nothing wrong with silly books, beautiful books, whimsical books etc, and I doubt these kids get to read them.

Reading shouldn't just be about ramming behavioral expectations home, it should be about so much more.

[Guest Anonymous]

Was it the Maxwell family that once punished the boys by making them stay in the car while the rest of family ate at Taco Bell or something?

Yup! They teased Anna about dogs being better than cats and she tattled on them so they were made to eat dry crackers in the van while everyone else had a meal in the restaurant.

Personally, I don't much like books that are contrived simply to teach certain behavioural expectations and I don't think that being distractible at age 2-3 is enough reason to withhold food from a child, even if it is 'only' a dessert. If a child gets down from the table before dessert, I don't think they need punishment, just a reminder, "Come back sweetie, we've got a yummy dessert to eat next" and maybe a little engagement and attention so that they are not bored enough to wander away.

[Deleted03]

Fine by me. Dessert is a treat and you only get treats and nice things if you behave yourself. It's not like he didn't get any food.

well it's best not to use food as a reward/punishement system. Dessert is not necessarily a treat - think of fruits, yogurt and well pudding is not necessarily "bad" for you.

Putting those categories on food makes it more easily for kids to categorize food as "it's bad for me but it's something I should want to have" rather than see food as a nourishement that everyone has a right to. Yes punish him/her for disrupting, not asking before leaving the table, but don't do it with food, do it with TV time, toys, etc. (or well that's the conclusion I have come to, to understand my weird relation with food).

[bananacat]

I'm not thrilled about the prospect of a fundie-lite upbringing either. So the girls will still be second-class citizens and all the children will be taught to be hateful and constantly fearful. And they'll hit their kids whether fundie-lite or full fundie. I don't know why people use this to defend them. I'm so sick of people saying "Oh, they might only be largely bad but not completely awful so we should give them all back-pats and applause!" Really, if you want me to think that Christina or Joshua will have good parents, it will take a lot more than telling me that maybe their parents will just be a little bit horrible.

[bananacat]

Well, chorepacks as a tool can be useful for any family. If I had kids, I wouldn't mind getting them something to remind them to do chores. The Maxwells are crazy but they do have some practical ideas of how to run a large household. It's what made their products so popular. We don't know what types of chores Abigail does. Jinger was cooking daily for her entire family by the time she was 11 which I find is a pretty heavy workload for a young child. Melanie is lucky she has a small family and probably won't get too much bigger. Her girls, regardless of the type of parenting, will at least escape the level of drudgery seen in so many larger, fundie families. And I hope that Melanie's family is involved in her kids' lives. They may be a moderating factor in face of the Maxwell's craziness.

All fundies that we've known that have overloaded their children with too much work. Why assume that these fundies will be any different? The Maxwells will never let a woman or girl be idle and they have a history of doing busywork just to make more chores for the nearly-adult daughters. Why would you think that Melanie would have any say in her household is run. It's a Patriarchy. They'll find plenty of work for those girls to do even if nothing needs to be done.

And chore packs are ridiculous no matter what. Part of a chore is remembering to do it. If your kid has so many that they can't be reasonably expected to remember them, then they have too many chores. And the Maxwells sell their junk because their cult encourages families to have way too many children and they become dependent on these overpriced things because they have too many kids to actually bother raising them or paying attention to them.