Older daughters living at home-Maxwells

[quincygal]

Every time I drop my kiddo off at his 2-yr-old PreK program, I think about how this is even more than what Terri & Steve encourage their children to do. I WANT my kid out there, mixing with others & learning social skills. They way I see it, he'll go away to college in 15.5 years, and he needs to be able to stand on his own then. I have that time to get him up to speed on all sorts of life skills, until I launch him (hopefully:)

I hope Sarah breaks out!

edited for putting in the wrong Maxwell girl name because I cannot keep them straight!

[thoughtful]

Meh, if Stevie has life insurance, Sarah could be "taken care of" financially when he kicks the bucket. Hopefully her book earnings are being saved for her future, as well. So financially, I don't think it would be a big deal. Emotionally, however, I think it would be almost crippling for her to live alone and not have someone tell her what to do and how to think every moment of the day. Just realizing she could put hamburger in the burritoes if she wanted would probably cripple her with guilt and shame. Much less if she's tempted to skip one of the 20 bible studies each day.

This is what gets to me. Money or no money, they've been raised to be so locked up and limited, only thinking about whether every moment of every day will lead to their Heavenly reward. Other than the joy of being with the little ones (which will soon change over to getting them worried about DEATH, too, so their spontaneity and fun will be gone), they have nothing, emotionally.

And, they've never had the chance to have work they love. Anything that truly interested them was squelched for fear of it becoming an "idol." Even doing the work Steve chooses for them, I imagine they feel terribly guilty if they complete a task and feel proud of themselves. As someone who loves her work, this just breaks my heart.

I know there are many people in this world who don't have work that interests them -- I've been there, before I got my education, and will do it again, if it is ever needed. And the work I do does not pay well -- I chose my passion over doing something lucrative.

But at least I had a choice.

[vas]

Has anyone noticed the most important part of this email?

"Only for Jesus,

The Maxwells

Steve & Teri; Nathan & Melanie, Abigail, Bethany and Christina; Christopher & Anna Marie, Joshua and ?; Sarah, Joseph, John, Anna, Jesse, and Mary"

[singsingsing]

Has anyone noticed the most important part of this email?

"Only for Jesus,

The Maxwells

Steve & Teri; Nathan & Melanie, Abigail, Bethany and Christina; Christopher & Anna Marie, Joshua and ?; Sarah, Joseph, John, Anna, Jesse, and Mary"

What is it? If it's baby #2 for Christopher and NRAnna that was announced a lonnng time ago... I think she's actually due next month, isn't she?

[vas]

Oh man, I spaced and was thinking Joshua was another Maxwell teen I'd forgotten about, who'd gotten engaged. I even posted a dumb comment on their blog >_

[singsingsing]

Oh man, I spaced and was thinking Joshua was another Maxwell teen I'd forgotten about, who'd gotten engaged. I even posted a dumb comment on their blog >_<

Seriously, don't worry about it. It's so hard to keep track of these people and their doings. :lol: I think the most telling bit of that comment is the long list of Maxwell 'children' who are still sitting there single... esp. Joseph with his paid-for-in-cash house and no wife to put in it.

[Coconut Flan]

I was expecting that there would have been another courtship for Joseph by now. Maybe they'll wait until the wedding is in progress or over to tell us about the next one.

[divadivine]

Does anyone think the Maxwell Cult will pull a Heaven's Gate & exit this life together? I don't know how they'd survive without each other... At least the ones still living on the compound.

[Sola]

So they're basically admitting that poor Sarah is never going to get married.

[nokidsmom]

I was expecting that there would have been another courtship for Joseph by now. Maybe they'll wait until the wedding is in progress or over to tell us about the next one.

I was also expecting that they would have gotten another courtship going for Joseph by now. In fact, long past now. But no, there's nothing, only that they were doing some more work on the house he bought and fixed up for Liz's arrival. Sure doesn't look like suitors for the girls or prospective brides' daddies are lining up at Stevie's door oh so hoping that Stevie will approve a shot at getting a Maxwell spouse and therefore gaining entry into heaven the Maxhell compound.

[acheronbeach]

Yeah, no. Using an entry-level accounting software, calculating taxes and figuring out how to ship parcels isn't a marketable skill.

I had to do that - and a hell of a lot more - when I was a 17 year old cashier working at a Canadian donut shop chain for minimum wage.

[gustava]

I agree that the two youngest daughters will be married off, and Sarah will remain unmarried. My guess is that Lord Steve will provide financially for her, at least a small sum, and her brothers will then assume responsibility for her.

[Justme]

So, what happens to the unmarried sons???? Will Joe finally be able to live in his house if he is unmarried when Steve and Teri die? Will the sons "share" in the house with the women? It took Chris a very long time to find a wife, chances are that at least 1 Maxwell son will be unmarried at the time of Steve's demise.....

P.S. Whoever inherits the house and assets will have to pay hefty inheritance taxes. Death ain't cheap!!

[Koala]

So they're basically admitting that poor Sarah is never going to get married.

Oh this is definitely a message to Sarah- possibly all 3 of the girls.

[Jezebel]

I thought I'd bring over the actual list of qualificationsskills and experience from Titus2.com Mom and Dad's corner for discussion.

I don't doubt that Sarah has picked up a lot of skills while working for the family business. In fact, everything he's mentioned here are skills I've picked up while running my own businesses. And yes, they are all useful skills--if you actually have a context in which to use them.

Now, if the boys were to keep the Titus2 thing going after Steve's death? She'd have a context for those skills. Or, if they have a construction business she could be their bookkeeper and administrative drone.

But should she go elsewhere, looking to get hired by strangers? Forget it. The only individuals I can imagine hiring someone like Sarah would do so because she's an obedient doormat, and ill-equipped to stand up for herself.

She's 31 now. She could be well into her 40s, 50s, or older by the time Steve dies. And let me tell you--getting hired for your very first job, with no non-family references, having lived an insular, restricted life like hers, and doing it all for the first time when you're pushing 40, or past it? Forget it.

Age discrimination is a huge hiring issue right now. I know a couple of people in their 50s (one will soon be 60) who have decades of work experience, loads of glowing recommendations, and great personalities--but they've been out of work for two years or more, and nobody will hire them. So yes, age is going to be a major strike against her if she tries entering the job market.

But it's beyond that. How is she going to fit in with co-workers, and deal with customers, who are completely unlike her family, or the religious hothouse that is the Maxwells' social and working circle? How well is she going to get along with atheists, GLBT folk, single mothers, college-educated women, dudebro guys, people who watch a lot of TV and are into sports, divorced people, non-Christians--or even Christians whose ideas about what being a "Christian" means don't resemble Steve Maxwell's?

Employers want skills, but they also want people who can fit in with the company culture and get along well with their co-workers. And other than a few churches or religious organizations, a homeschooled, middle-aged spinster who never left home, and whose life has been devoted to her father's authoritarian, ultra-conservative religious message is not going to represent a worthwhile risk. Sure, she has skills. But they are all fairly low-level administrative skills that lots of job candidates are going to have--candidates who have been out in the world, met all different kinds of people, and generally know how to get along.

But let's imagine that Sarah neither has a place within her brothers' businesses, nor does she choose to get hired by strangers. What is she going to do?

She's been raised to always put others first, and obey authority without question. She's been raised to disregard her talents and interests, feel shame about her own drives and desires, and had all independence of thought squashed out of her. She lives on someone else's schedule, by someone else's rules, under someone else's roof, and has all the skills she has because somebody else told her that she had to learn them, for somebody else's convenience.

So am I to believe that somehow she (or her sisters) will crack out of that shell, decide what she wants to do with the rest of her life, and actually do it, on her own? Right. She'll end up living with and working for one of her married brothers and his family, being told what to do and when and how, because that's exactly what she's been raised to do. Ditto, Anna.

Not only that, but she also has now authored eight successful children’s books.

Steve might declare them "successful," but the fact stands that they are eight mind-numbingly dull and poorly-written children's books. Plus, it wasn't even Sarah's desire to write them--Steve told her to, so she keeps grinding them out.

So are we truly to believe that, should her world fall apart and she finds herself all on her own, that Sarah will be able to pick herself up, dust herself off, decide on a plan that is all her own and really excites and inspires ther, and take independent action to make it so?

Steve, please.

Anna has bookkeeping skills she learned as she managed the boys’ construction-business books, has her A+ certificate, and much experience in nutrition and exercise. .

[see]

Steve, Anna has no education. That she seems to enjoy cooking, and has perhaps done a little reading on nutrition, does not qualify her for anything but the most menial restaurant or fast food jobs. Maybe she'd make a good dietician (and I honestly suspect she would), but we'll never know because the only education she has, and likely ever will have, is the obviously deficient and selective one you and your depressive wife saw fit to give her. Anna's writing skills are actually worse than Sarah's, and that's saying something.

Mary is taking art classes.

Why, Steve? She has no natural (God-given) talent, and I know you don't let your kids learn new skills strictly out of enjoyment. Any art she produces (especially given the level of classes you would allow her to take) is going to be as vapid and dull as her eldest sister's writings. Is this just your attempt to convince people that you don't really crush all the joy, self-expression, and creativity out of your kids? 'Cause it ain't working on me.

[Cleopatra7]

Does anyone think the Maxwell Cult will pull a Heaven's Gate & exit this life together? I don't know how they'd survive without each other... At least the ones still living on the compound.

You beat me to it. I don't see how the "children" will be able to manage as independent entities without their "Father God," not even the ones who are married. They all think they're such terrible sinners anyway that perhaps they wouldn't mind suicide.

[singsingsing]

I think all the sons will end up married. Steve seems more lax when it comes to his sons, because the wife is the one who is going to be brought to live with them, and therefore under his authority by extension, thus why he was willing to let his son marry a Munck even though they're so different. He may be stricter now after that fiasco, but the sad thing is that the men are allowed initiative, so if they want a wife they will go out an find one. The girls (because they are forever treated as girls, not women) have to sit and wait for someone to notice them, want them, and then jump through all Steve's hoops. I wouldn't be surprised if Steve thought he could better protect his daughters' immortal souls by keeping them single and under his (or whatever son succeeds him) control forever.

[FloraDoraDolly]

Steve might declare them "successful," but the fact stands that they are eight mind-numbingly dull and poorly-written children's books. Plus, it wasn't even Sarah's desire to write them--Steve told her to, so she keeps grinding them out.

I wonder how many books Sarah has sold? If she's selling thousands of copies of each book, then she can indeed be considered a successful self-published author, regardless of how readers outside their target market perceive her literary talents. Most self-published works of fiction sell a few hundred copies, if that. But Sarah is writing for a particular niche market and it's one where she doesn't have much competition. The kids' books that you can find at your local Christian bookseller are too worldly for fundies. Now that Vision Forum has gone kaput, the selection of fundie kid books is even smaller. It's possible that Sarah is making a decent chunk of $$$ from the Moody series.

[twin2]

I didn't think about the lack of social skills. They have no idea on how to act with other people outside their family. If they did get a job cleaning house you know that they would launch into a speech about death as often as they can to whoever hired them and most likely would not last long just based on that.

And they really don't know how to manage their time. They have never had to make any real decisions on their own. I really don't think that they would be able to function on their own.

But I thought their children were the paragon of conversational excellence?

[SPHASH]

Steve's voice sounds really creepy.

[terranova]

If Steve and Teri live another 20-25 years and Sarah atleast is still at home, then I see Christopher buying their house, moving in with Anna-Marie and their brood (minimum 10 kids) and Sarah would live under his headship until she dies.

[ncb]

So, what happens to the unmarried sons???? Will Joe finally be able to live in his house if he is unmarried when Steve and Teri die? Will the sons "share" in the house with the women? It took Chris a very long time to find a wife, chances are that at least 1 Maxwell son will be unmarried at the time of Steve's demise.....

P.S. Whoever inherits the house and assets will have to pay hefty inheritance taxes. Death ain't cheap!!

The taxes won't be much, real estate transfer taxes, capital gains on any assets liquidates but, if Steve has done his planning it won't be too bad. Republicans want us to believe that large "death taxes" impact most people but they don't, only people with a net worth over 3 Million. I doubt Stevie has reached that yet!

[OnceModestTwiceShy]

For fuck's sake, Steve. I know registered dieticians with MA degrees and trained chefs who are struggling to find jobs waiting tables. You expect me to believe that your 18-y/o uneducated, sheltered daughter has some kind professional qualifications in "nutrition" because she is good at making leftovers into soup or whatever stupid shit Sarah said about Anna's "cooking skills" in her b-day post? Stop insulting everyone's intelligence, you arrogant asshat.

Same goes for Mary - you have to be educated, well-connected, and EXTREMELY lucky to so much as get your foot in the door in the art world. WTF is she going to do with her mad card-making skillz, exactly?

As for Sarah, I can't. Too fucking sad.

[twin2]

For fuck's sake, Steve. I know registered dieticians with MA degrees and trained chefs who are struggling to find jobs waiting tables. You expect me to believe that your 18-y/o uneducated, sheltered daughter has some kind professional qualifications in "nutrition" because she is good at making leftovers into soup or whatever stupid shit Sarah said about Anna's "cooking skills" in her b-day post? Stop insulting everyone's intelligence, you arrogant asshat.

Same goes for Mary - you have to be educated, well-connected, and EXTREMELY lucky to so much as get your foot in the door in the art world. WTF is she going to do with her mad card-making skillz, exactly?

As for Sarah, I can't. Too fucking sad.

I refuse to listen, did he seriously say this? They may have skills, but in order to make a living from them one has to be able to demonstrate proficiency in said skills, which most folks do on their resumes via the education and work experience and by providing references. What are they going to do, have their brothers write references on how well they prepare Sunday's burrito dinner and paint the trim in their houses?

[Hane]

Sometime back, the Maxwells were selling some sad-looking little "inspirational" posters: generic-looking royalty-free-photo backgrounds with Bible verses printed over them. We had a bit of a giggle over them, because, IIRC, one of them had a pic of an animal in it that was different from the animal in the Bible verse, or some such nonsense.

Apparently these masterworks weren't selling, so Stevehovah posted on the blog that he was putting them on clearance. His comment was something like, "It seems people aren't interested in them *sigh*--" implying that IT'S YOUR FAULT, YOU GODLESS HEATHENS--WHAT IS *WRONG* WITH YOU?????

Of course, it wasn't because they were cheesy little things and a trip to any card store would get you something exponentially better.