Yet another homeschooling mom with unemployed husband

[ElphabaGalinda]

What is she talking about? Her husband failed? Honey, you're a failure also. Why isn't your ass out looking for a job or already employed? You have six children and no income. As much as you might want to be a stay at home mom, it's time to suck it up and go to work. At least until your husband finds employment again. You need to make sure your children can eat and have a safe place to sleep. That is your most important role as a parent, providing for your children. If you can't do that, then you are failing them.

This. They're both failures. Maybe someone might really want to be a SAHM or homeschool, but if you can't feed your children or provide them a safe place to sleep, if you can't provide them with the very basic necessities, none of that matters anymore. Her children shouldn't have to starve just because their mother is so attached to her "Biblical" role. I too wonder what he did to loose his job. It's those children that will suffer the most, and the charity of others isn't going to last forever. She should take all the assistance she can get, send her kids to public school and make finding her job a full time job until she gets one. And she needs to work as long it takes to keep her children fed.

[katecake]

It's awful that people feel like failures if they DO the things it takes to keep things afloat...but not if they "live by faith."

[katecake]

I am confused though...she's only been blogging for two days...how long has this been going on? If it's a one-time handout, well, my parents got those when I was a child. It's something churches do when someone loses a job. Is it possible too much is being read into their situation? I know it's a snark board...

[Guest Anonymous]

Wow. And I thought Mckmama was hard to read. lol

[lilwriter85]

Okay, the part about the balloon dog is amazing.

To be fair, she does not list an address, email, or any way of contacting her on her blog, as far as I can find. I think she just wants to pat herself on the back for sitting on her ass while her children suffer contributing nothing to society making a difficult situation work by the grace of the LORD.

Eating out of cans for a week sounds awful.

I also noticed that she doesn't have an email listed on the blog. I found the mom forum that another poster mentioned and she lives in Indiana. She stated that her husband worked at a warehouse. It is pretty likely that at least one person on that forum has contacted her about ways to help. I wouldn't be surprised if she puts up contact info on the blog.

[lilwriter85]

I am confused though...she's only been blogging for two days...how long has this been going on? If it's a one-time handout, well, my parents got those when I was a child. It's something churches do when someone loses a job. Is it possible too much is being read into their situation? I know it's a snark board...

She posted on a mom forum that her husband lost his job on the 11th of this month. My guess is that they have probably been struggling awhile and this job loss has them in a panic. I do have sympathy for them, but i agree with others she should be looking into possibly getting a job.

[emmiedahl]

Does she say how old her youngest child is? To be fair, that could factor into things, if she's nursing.

She said her youngest was homeschooling "nursery school". What is that, age 2 or 3? She is probably desperately trying for the next blessing, also.

[katecake]

She definitely should look for a job unless she has a very small infant, and it doesn't sound like she does according to the fact that she referred to her youngest as being nursery school age.

. We have expected my husband to lose his job for a while now (still hasn't happened, but I cannot imagine his company staying afloat much longer) and in addition to unemployment our first line of defense is for me to look for work (because our baby isn't so much of a baby anymore. He can certainly stay with his dad.)

Homeschooling families should learn to adjust to seasons where things are not going to be the way they were. If that includes mommy being gone sometimes, well, that can be God's provision too.

[katecake]

Oh, it sets my teeth on edge when people are seeking pregnancy in these circumstances. It's one thing when it's an oops...but to actively seek it? WHY???

[lilwriter85]

She definitely should look for a job unless she has a very small infant, and it doesn't sound like she does according to the fact that she referred to her youngest as being nursery school age.

. We have expected my husband to lose his job for a while now (still hasn't happened, but I cannot imagine his company staying afloat much longer) and in addition to unemployment our first line of defense is for me to look for work (because our baby isn't so much of a baby anymore. He can certainly stay with his dad.)

Homeschooling families should learn to adjust to seasons where things are not going to be the way they were. If that includes mommy being gone sometimes, well, that can be God's provision too.

I agree that they should do something like that. The mom could at least work part time during the day or possibily night jobs. But with a lot of these fundies, they won't do anything like that because "a woman's place is at home".

[katecake]

I want to know why a woman thinks she can't keep her own home and leave it once in a while.

[emmiedahl]

To be fair, her husband would have a hard time looking for a job if he was watching the kids while she worked. I am doing the trading off childcare thing with kids and it is much easier said than done. Not that we don't make it work, but we end up paying my sister to babysit once or twice a week, which comes out of savings or student loans. We were lucky that we had a sizeable amount of savings, not a huge amount but a cushion to stave away the middle-of-the-night panic.

Getting childcare assistance can be difficult. In my state, looking for a job is not an approved activity unless you are on cash assistance. So both parents need to be working in order to get the subsidy. Most students will be disqualified unless they are in an approved vocational program like nurse's aide, and even then you need to work 30+ hours a week in addition to school.

When it comes to your children, though, you just make it work. You do what you have to do. He has only been unemployed for a few days so the reality has not sunk in. People will soon grow weary of giving their own limited resources to a home with two able-bodied adults and she hopefully will take government assistance when that happens.

[katecake]

A fair response. Hopefully he can find another job soon so there won't be a worry.

[jenny_islander]

I would find her much more sympathetic if she were writing this from a perspective of "hey, have a full-time minimum wage job and I'm trying to find a second job while hubby's unemployed and we're recieving all the different kinds of gov't help we qualify for and we're still struggling to feed the kids and pay rent." As it stands, I feel not one iota of sympathy for her whatsoever.

Wait, are they refusing government aid? With six children to feed? Aid that comes from a pool of money that the husband, at least, paid into? Aid that cannot by itself replace every calorie the family needs, but will at least keep them from starving and freezing to death while they dig themselves out of the hole?

Wow, that's stupid.

[Arete]

Oh, it sets my teeth on edge when people are seeking pregnancy in these circumstances. It's one thing when it's an oops...but to actively seek it? WHY???

That's the freaky thing. They are all into God's provision for their lives, but can not make the connection that they have to uphold certain behaviors down here if anything from up There is going to help. God will provide two adults who can work, but it's up to both of them to find a job. The beastly State will give struggling families some assistance, but you have to actually sign up, it's not going to rain down on you. Homeschooling children isn't worth jack if they don't have enough food to grow their brains.

They take pregnancy when your skating on the edge of malnutrition and homelessness as a sign that God approves of you and this will be a blessing. They don't seem to understand that the only thing that pregnancy is a sign of in these circumstances is one more mouth to feed on already cut resources. This is neither theologically complex nor rocket science.

[desertvixen]

I ARE CONFUSED

Losing jobs is a fact of life. It's not like she had to say "He has incurable genital warts, herpes and thrush. Those conditions have collectively distorted his genitals into something resembling a balloon dog."

And yes, love, you are panhandling.

I would just like you to know that I know have a very clear and unpleasant image in my head now...

[Lillybee]

I hope that he applied for unemployment insurance benefits but he may have been denied if he was fired for cause.

[doggie]

Oh, it sets my teeth on edge when people are seeking pregnancy in these circumstances. It's one thing when it's an oops...but to actively seek it? WHY???

because then god will bless them with everything they need.

[Guest Anonymous]

I am a big fan of the unnecessary ellipsis (as well as gratuitous Caps Locking, italics, and 'etc.') but this is just nuts. Stop it.

[lilwriter85]

I hope that he applied for unemployment insurance benefits but he may have been denied if he was fired for cause.

She did say something about an incident at work. But she isn't going to say exactly what is on the blog.

[emmiedahl]

Good point, all: He would be getting unemployment unless he quit, or was fired with cause. I doubt she would discuss this openly. On the other hand, it is possible they are getting unemployment and she just has not mentioned it because OMGeebilsocialism and also, it cuts back on her self-proclaimed victimhood.

[Lillybee]

Good point, all: He would be getting unemployment unless he quit, or was fired with cause. I doubt she would discuss this openly. On the other hand, it is possible they are getting unemployment and she just has not mentioned it because OMGeebilsocialism and also, it cuts back on her self-proclaimed victimhood.

There is what is called a waiting week before one qualifies for uib so even if he applied , he wouldn't be getting a check for at least a week or two from now.

[smores]

My biggest problem with her is that she goes into huge detail about how they made a huge sacrifice to eat all organic, etc, and now they aren't. So instead of having a decent sized emergency fund and eating normal food for a while, they spent a good portion of money on food that wasn't 100% necessary for the well being of their children, NOT planning ahead, and now are on the edge of having no food and apparently have no money (wouldn't he have JUST gotten his second paycheck last week or this week?) and six little mouths are about to get hungrier. Because they were idiots who couldn't plan ahead.

You know, I'm young, I had a kid a bit young and I am a SAHM but we have an emergency fund that would take care of us for at least two months (which is about all it would take for DH to find work here - the number of jobs in his field is pretty staggering, there just aren't a lot of people going to school for it and not many programs at schools for it) if we really stretched, canceled a bunch of things (cable package with internet/phone, turned off the AC, ate out of our stockpiled pantry and freezer and accepted WIC). If we sold my camera equipment and editing monitor and desk, his instruments and the other electronics, we could make it another two months.

Who doesn't have a backup plan with six kids? Why did she have a yard sale just to donate all the money, and yet had no emergency fund? I want to know the answers to these questions, really I do, because things just don't add up. If my husband lost his job mid-week, we'd have at least 1 if not 2 paychecks still coming our way depending on which week it was on the pay schedule.

[ElphabaGalinda]

Good point, all: He would be getting unemployment unless he quit, or was fired with cause. I doubt she would discuss this openly. On the other hand, it is possible they are getting unemployment and she just has not mentioned it because OMGeebilsocialism and also, it cuts back on her self-proclaimed victimhood.

Calling the reason he's no longer working an incident sounds pretty bad, and makes it sound like he was fired with cause. They wouldn't admit to any sort of assistance even unemployment, because it would ruin their socialism is eeeevil thing, and it seems like she enjoys being a victim somewhat, but for the kids' sakes I hope they will. They shouldn't starve just because their mother has a desire to be a victim and backwards politics.

[Wolfie]

Oh, it sets my teeth on edge when people are seeking pregnancy in these circumstances. It's one thing when it's an oops...but to actively seek it? WHY???

And sadly it's not just fundies that do this- my cousin and his wife got pregnant on purpose when they were both out of jobs. (not to mention that they already had another kid!)