Young Homemakers

[Anny Nym]

This homely, quilt-crafting-crafty, cleaning-lovin´, modest-dressin´, headship-submitting bible followers did never and will never stand a single chance in the sexist and cruel REALITY of fundie helpmeet selecting. No one will ever come and ask for a courtship.

Once again, this cult eats its children.

[louisa05]

What an incredibly boring, stifling life these girls live. And, yes, they are girls even if they're near 30. Man, was that ever a depressing read!

Why do fundies talk about intergenerational friendships as though they invented the idea? I guess they don't understand that if you are out in the world working or going to school you will necessarily meet up with people older and younger than you and friendships/mentoring will happen! This is a big issue with the Duggars who use it as one of their reasons for homeschooling (our kids get to interact with kids of all ages; kids in teh evil public schools only interact with people their own age). At my kids' school, the upper school kids come and read to the nursery kids and become their "buddy" for school special events. The middle school kids do the same thing for the K-2 kids. When we go in in the morning my 3 year old will shout "There's my friend" to her senior buddy. See fundies, this isn't a concept you invented nor is its application limited to your ginormous families.

Most schools do this to some degree; but if the middle school kids had to sit in a classroom with the preschoolers all day, no one would be learning to their full potential. As for their wonderful example of NEVER being able to play without their younger siblings...the issue there is the same reason that schools use age as a general division. Kids at different developmental stages play and learn differently. There is nothing wrong with 13 year olds not wanting to constantly spend time with 6 year olds. One of my best friends has seven children ranging from 10 to a newborn. I have been at her house when a toddler was taken somewhere else to keep him out of the way while older kids played a board game or something else that he could not participate in (at least not constructively). She feels that the older ones need time to do things that are age appropriate without younger siblings underfoot, and she is absolutely correct. There is a balance.

Of course, I have known a lot of fundies and have yet to meet any that understand balance. Everything is done in extremes in their world.

[Childless]

My PARENTS would go stark raving mad If my sister or me would do that SAHD thing. And they´re even old-school catholic! :D

Please, it wasn't even an option in my parents' house. After getting your high school diploma, you had two choices. Get a job or go to college. They didn't condone slackers sitting around on their asses all day long mooching off their hard work. At 18 years old, you are an adult and my parents expected their adult children to forge their own way in the world and start their own lives. Being dependent on someone else is a sure fire path to disaster. Someday, you're going to have to step up and support yourself or your family. It's advisable that you learn early how to do it.

[Joan of Snarc]

^ My parents were the same way. At 18, I was on my own. They helped out with college expenses, but I mostly did it on my own. I was told over and over, in no uncertain terms, to never think I would be mooching off of them at any time for the rest of my life. It was sink or swim. They would never have tolerated me under their roof except for college vacations or if I had a job and been paying them rent.

[AnywhereButHere]

Please, it wasn't even an option in my parents' house. After getting your high school diploma, you had two choices. Get a job or go to college. They didn't condone slackers sitting around on their asses all day long mooching off their hard work. At 18 years old, you are an adult and my parents expected their adult children to forge their own way in the world and start their own lives. Being dependent on someone else is a sure fire path to disaster. Someday, you're going to have to step up and support yourself or your family. It's advisable that you learn early how to do it.

As soon as I turned legal working age, my dad told me I could work for him or work for someone else, but I WOULD be working. When my high school guidance counselor suggested I take a year off, my dad was having none of it. I was going to college. No question. Smart man my father. He knew if I took off a year I'd never go. He was older than my friends' dads and from a different era, so his social views were very conservative, but he wanted his kids to take advantage of all the opportunities available to us. Not sit home and wait for some mythical prince charming.

[Anny Nym]

Please, it wasn't even an option in my parents' house. After getting your high school diploma, you had two choices. Get a job or go to college. They didn't condone slackers sitting around on their asses all day long mooching off their hard work. At 18 years old, you are an adult and my parents expected their adult children to forge their own way in the world and start their own lives. Being dependent on someone else is a sure fire path to disaster. Someday, you're going to have to step up and support yourself or your family. It's advisable that you learn early how to do it.

Almost the same here, with a strong emphasis on the "getting a job" thing - my parents did never and do still not think that high of "...too much school". (I´m from humble working-class background) :D

I once tried to explain the phenomena of SAHDs to my dad and his first concern was "But aren´t the neighbours gossipping all day, when one has a grown child who doesn´t work sitting at home? We wouldn´t be able to show our faces at parties and at the family christmas gathering anymore!"

Sometimes, parents are utter sweet, aren´t they! :mrgreen:

[Jinger Jar]

The stay-at-home children I know didn't choose to remain at home so much as they stayed because creating an independent life would have been too much for them. Growing up we had a middle-aged neighbor we referred to as "slow" who lived with his mother. One of my grandmother's sisters was really shy and borderline reclusive; she wouldn't even attend events where it was just family and people she knew. She was her mother's housekeeper, companion and caregiver until my great-grandmother died. She survived her mother by just a year. A friend of mine's oldest brother is in his sixties and never left home. He's also super shy, and as an elderly man seems content with sleeping in the same bedroom he did as a toddler.

These peoples' families differ from our fundies in that they didn't have the expectation that all their children would remain home until they married. All of them had other children who went away to college, traveled/lived abroad, and had their own lives before they married.

If I had an adult child who was cognitively/psychologically/medically incapable of living independently, of course the child would live with me if that was possible. No question. But I don't get the parents who keep at home adult children capable of living on their own. I think kids would have to be groomed to be 'keepers of their parents home,' and this seems deliberately stunting to me. I can't imagining wanting that for my children.

[sparkles]

Can you imagine being the oldest brother in a family full of unmarried sisters? So Daddy dies and then what? Responsibility for all of the SAHD-spinsters falls to the brother? Can you just imagine how THRILLED he would be? Especially if he has his own mega-family to support. Yeah, this will work out just fine...

[Drina Adams]

What the hell kind of training is needed to run a house? I, like most normal people, grew up doing chores, watching my mum and dad cook and do DIY and was expected to help out. I bought my own home in my early 20s, moved in and managed to do some renovations, keep it clean, feed myself, shop and cook all my meals, pay the bills and keep the house maintained, while working fulltime and studying, alongside a busy social life. Now I've a baby, another on the way, a fulltime job, family and friends to see and the usual hosuehold stuff to do, which my husband helps with, and I still have time to waste on the inter web.

These fundy families have really made an idol of homemaking and staying at home until marriage. Even when living alone and dating I wasn't sleeping around -the way they see women like me, they must think we bring home a different man every night. I always cooked everything from scratch, because that's what I grew up with and its cheaper health and shopping wise. Do they think I'm a bad mother and wife because I don't 'do' fulltime homemaking? Or that I need more 'training'?

[Carla Bruni]

This is seriously some depressing shit, but it's also annoying as fuck with all the *bliss* *HeHe* *bliss* *cough* *OMGSTFU*. Here's an "interview" with them: ofasingleheart.blogspot.com/2013/02/bravehearted-women-jessica-and-rachel.html?spref=bl

The lead-in paragraph is the best, of course:

Today we share sweet fellowship with Jessica and Rachel Phillips, two Bravehearted sisters who are practically and daily seeking what the Lord would have for them to do each day.

We need to come up with a fundie blog bingo board with terms like "sweet fellowship" and "seeking the Lord".

That Of A Single Heart blog is in itself quite atrocious tbh. Love the tagline - "exploring the endless frontier of reckless abandon to Jesus Christ". To me this sounds like the premise of really bad pr0n.

P.S. Am I the only person deeply bothered by grown-ass children calling their parents Mommy & Daddy? :wtf:

[JMarie]

Almost the same here, with a strong emphasis on the "getting a job" thing - my parents did never and do still not think that high of "...too much school". (I´m from humble working-class background) :D

I once tried to explain the phenomena of SAHDs to my dad and his first concern was "But aren´t the neighbours gossipping all day, when one has a grown child who doesn´t work sitting at home? We wouldn´t be able to show our faces at parties and at the family christmas gathering anymore!"

Sometimes, parents are utter sweet, aren´t they! :mrgreen:

After the Sandy Hook shooting, there was much speculation about Adam Lanza being unemployed and not enrolled in school, and how those details should have been warning signs. Yet it's okay for fundy girls to unemployed (meaning not being employed by an outside entity, and not involved in a legitimate home-based business) and not enrolled somewhere (CollegeMinus doesn't count).

[Flossie]

After the Sandy Hook shooting, there was much speculation about Adam Lanza being unemployed and not enrolled in school, and how those details should have been warning signs. Yet it's okay for fundy girls to unemployed (meaning not being employed by an outside entity, and not involved in a legitimate home-based business) and not enrolled somewhere (CollegeMinus doesn't count).

Adam Lanza is (IMO) completely different from a STHD. IFRC, he attended public school and was not considered to be of below average intelligence. However, he exhibited many signs of some kind of disorder. He may have been high-functioning autistic, or on the extreme end of Aspergers, or something else. Whatever was happening to him was getting worse. His parents had divorced so his father wasn't a daily presence in his life, the older brother moved on and started his own life. That left Adam, who seemed to be decompensating, alone with his mother. I can't say for sure, but it appears that his mother was having a difficult time managing Adam.

It's just my opinion, but the fact that his parents were divorced and he had an older brother who has successfully gone out into the world while Adam was left at home with a mother who might have been having problems managing him leads me to think that there is no correlation to STAHD's.

[punkiepie]

One of my fundie friends follows them on Pinterest and she repinned something from their board and it popped up on my feed this morning. If I hadn't seen this thread, I never would have given it second look; all I can say is, WOW and WTF. They are the Doomsday Preppers of Pinterest. Instead of stockpiling non-perishable food, ammo, and medicine- they have stockpiled a whopping- drum roll please- 53,268 pins and liked 7,826 pins. For a grand total of 60,914!!!Eleventy!1!

I don't see how two girls, who clearly have nothing going on at all, have pinned 1,525 "Fashion" items and 689 different hair styles/tutorials. AND 1459 cakes and cupcakes! Just cakes and cupcakes- they have another board just for homemade cookies with over 1300 pins! I just can't stop using the exclamation point because it's SO crazy!

How is it even possible to have pinned 60,914 different things? I have never, ever seen one board, with only two people having access, have that many pins. I don't even understand the physics behind it. Is this the life of the SAHD? Pinning shit all.fucking.day.long? I can't imagine how horrible it would be to have all these dreams of being a homemaker and just sitting at home every damn day waiting for it to happen.

The link for those of you who are interested: pinterest.com/rpelephant/

[GeoBQn]

That reminds me of when a colleague of mine started posting two-word, nonsensical status updates every 30 seconds on Facebook--so much that it took up my entire newsfeed for several hours. I assumed that her account had gotten hacked by some kind of spambot and I hid her statuses. It turned out that she really WAS posting that much. She was in a severely manic state and needed help. That's when I learned that inhumanly-high levels of social media posts could be a warning sign.

[August]

Bravehearted? What the ever-loving fuck is brave about never getting an education, job, or boyfriend?

Today we share sweet fellowship with Jessica and Rachel Phillips, two Bravehearted sisters who are practically and daily seeking what the Lord would have for them to do each day.

Jesus told me he would have me ignore the festering laundry and stay in bed with the laptop today. Hallelujah. I wonder if he'll lay it upon my heart that we should have pizza for dinner?

[Zoom]

the Lord saw fit to allow me to develop carpal tunnel early on in 2012 and I spent the first 6 months in an unknown pain in my hands, and the latter 6 months learning to manage it.

The Lord saw fit to ALLOW me to develop carpal tunnel! Seriously!! ALLOW!

Bonkers

[Anny Nym]

Actually almost spilled my soup when reading that! This woman has some rad hobbies, I tell you! :wtf:

[punkiepie]

The Lord saw fit to ALLOW me to develop carpal tunnel! Seriously!! ALLOW!

Bonkers

She got carpal tunnel because she pins 500 pins per day! And that's just the stuff she likes. She must spend all damn day on the computer. I would be surprised if she didn't get carpal tunnel!

[August]

She got carpal tunnel because she pins 500 pins per day! And that's just the stuff she likes. She must spend all damn day on the computer. I would be surprised if she didn't get carpal tunnel!

What n earth else would she do all day? Three or four adults in the house. What, an hour of housework per day, two of cooking and then you just get to sit. I'd go fucking mental.

[Zoom]

What n earth else would she do all day? Three or four adults in the house. What, an hour of housework per day, two of cooking and then you just get to sit. I'd go fucking mental.

I was off four days last week. By Sunday lunch my flat was spotless, my freezer full, 2/3 of my essays corrected and I was going NUTS. I can't imagine staying home all the time. I could never be a SAHD.

[fundyfunland]

Squandering your most fertile years makes fundy baby Jesus cry, ladies (er, I mean "girls"). Think of all those unfertilized eggs that could have grown into righteous arrows! Tsk, tsk! : )

And, I for one, am quite happy that they're squandering those precious years. Fewer fundie marriages = fewer fundie babies. This movement is going to implode, and I'm looking forward to watching the aftermath. I'm just sorry that there'll be so many 60yr old "girls" in the future whose only life purpose was never realized.

[Burris]

^ My parents were the same way. At 18, I was on my own. They helped out with college expenses, but I mostly did it on my own. I was told over and over, in no uncertain terms, to never think I would be mooching off of them at any time for the rest of my life. It was sink or swim. They would never have tolerated me under their roof except for college vacations or if I had a job and been paying them rent.

SAHDs? LOL I still have a hard time figuring out how this obviously failing model benefits anyone - and that includes its adherents.

I've worked since age 16. My parents let me stay past 18 - well, my belongings stayed, anyway. I technically 'lived' with my mother until I married, even though I hadn't actually seen my mom or any other member of my family for a period of well over two years.

I materialised at my mother's front door one day. (We moved together, ended up living [and working] in a shitty hotel together while I attended university - I was a 'late bloomer' when it came to uni, in part because I attended class by class while working - and now, so many years and kilometres later we’re still in close proximity: She lives in the same apartment building as I do. I guess I can't totally slam SAHDs.)

There is a happy middle between "SAHD" and having parents drive their kids out when they reach the age of majority. And that happy middle is, as a lot of posters have already pointed out, work or school for those of age

[salex]

And, I for one, am quite happy that they're squandering those precious years. Fewer fundie marriages = fewer fundie babies. This movement is going to implode, and I'm looking forward to watching the aftermath. I'm just sorry that there'll be so many 60yr old "girls" in the future whose only life purpose was never realized.

This is my thuoght. I'm not even sure I'm sorry for the "girls" because they have options, even if they refuse to take them. They "could" push for a courtship "mom, i've been praying and god put in my heart that..... " or they could leave, if they had the gumption (which, I know has been bred and plumbing lined out of them)

But, the bigger and more public failure all of this is, the better for society as a whole.