Jesse Maxwell is gonna homeschool

[VenusDaisy]

The broken engagements happened, Steve. You can't make them UNhappen by scrubbing your blog and pretending they didn't--lying by the sin of omission is still LYING. You're trying to put one over on people and if that's not dishonest and deceitful, I don't know what is. Liar, Liar, pants on fire.

I would LOVE to be a fly on the wall for one of their courtship seminars.

Are the Maxwells still holding courtship seminars?

[NotALoserLikeYou]

I see the if/when chart on the site but nothing on it about spanking.

Why on earth did Sarah name her first four books summer/fall/winter/spring with the Moody's and then books 5-8 are summer/fall/winter/spring DAYS with the Moody's? What in the fuck.

If they endorsed the pearls I don't see it (do they endorse anyone or anything other than themselves?!) but I've only followed them for a while and other people would know better than I do.

[WonderingInWA]

I see the if/when chart on the site but nothing on it about spanking.

Why on earth did Sarah name her first four books summer/fall/winter/spring with the Moody's and then books 5-8 are summer/fall/winter/spring DAYS with the Moody's? What in the fuck.

If they endorsed the pearls I don't see it (do they endorse anyone or anything other than themselves?!) but I've only followed them for a while and other people would know better than I do.

This. The possibilities are endless, aren't they?

[Justme]

Psychological/ verbal abuse can be more painful than physical pain. Physical pain can stop, words can linger forever.

[Trynn]

Psychological/ verbal abuse can be more painful than physical pain. Physical pain can stop, words can linger forever.

That's true. I was both spanked and verbally abused as a child. It was the verbal abuse that fucked me up, not so much the spanking (though that did mess me up a little bit too, it didn't stick with me as much.)

[love2scrap]

I actually think it is unfair to say that Rebecca wants to be a Maxwell, whether we use desperate as an adjective or not. If she had no such intentions when she left those comments (and we will never know for sure) it would be pretty mean of us to keep saying so.

[FloraDoraDolly]

I actually think it is unfair to say that Rebecca wants to be a Maxwell, whether we use desperate as an adjective or not. If she had no such intentions when she left those comments (and we will never know for sure) it would be pretty mean of us to keep saying so.

Whatever it was, I haven't seen her over there much lately.

[Justme]

I actually think it is unfair to say that Rebecca wants to be a Maxwell, whether we use desperate as an adjective or not. If she had no such intentions when she left those comments (and we will never know for sure) it would be pretty mean of us to keep saying so.

Rebecca may have viewed the Maxwells as a "perfect" family and was a bit envious. Just like many of us, in our youth, wanted to be a Brady or Partridge. It wasn't that we didn't love our own families, it was that they looked (on the surface) so "cool" and traveled to places we only dreamed of. We grew out of this in our teens. Sheltered fundies take much longer to "mature".

She seems like a sweet girl/woman and I wish her the best.

[kpmom]

I see the if/when chart on the site but nothing on it about spanking.

Why on earth did Sarah name her first four books summer/fall/winter/spring with the Moody's and then books 5-8 are summer/fall/winter/spring DAYS with the Moody's? What in the fuck.

If they endorsed the pearls I don't see it (do they endorse anyone or anything other than themselves?!) but I've only followed them for a while and other people would know better than I do.

Back in the late 90's, Teri allowed Debi Pearl to guest write some of her Mom's Corners, so apparently there was a relationship between them at some point.

Teri also mentioned in a Corner back then that Debi taught her about how women are to "reverence" their husbands (gag).

I have an idea though that there was some sort of falling out between the families. Michael Pearl wrote several years ago about some hypothetical fundy

family with 8 adult children, most of whom were unmarried and living at home, due to way too much sheltering. He was patting himself on the back for getting his kids married off.

It was pretty obvious who this hypothetical family was.

[WonderingInWA]

Back in the late 90's, Teri allowed Debi Pearl to guest write some of her Mom's Corners, so apparently there was a relationship between them at some point.

Teri also mentioned in a Corner back then that Debi taught her about how women are to "reverence" their husbands (gag).

I have an idea though that there was some sort of falling out between the families. Michael Pearl wrote several years ago about some hypothetical fundy

family with 8 adult children, most of whom were unmarried and living at home, due to way too much sheltering. He was patting himself on the back for getting his kids married off.

It was pretty obvious who this hypothetical family was.

Interesting! I'd love to read that little tidbit!

[treemom]

While I don't sugarcoat the belief system Rebecca has, the Maxwells don't deserve her.

[kpmom]

Interesting! I'd love to read that little tidbit!

Check out the No Greater Joy magazine archives. September-October 2008 has an article entitled Cloistered Homeschool Syndrome.

ETA: A similar (very long) article in November 2008 issue entitled Patriarchal Dysfunctional Families.

Pearl seems very against adult children living at home into their 20's and 30's having no opportunity to leave or meet a mate.

[WonderingInWA]

Check out the No Greater Joy magazine archives. September-October 2008 has an article entitled Cloistered Homeschool Syndrome.

ETA: A similar (very long) article in November 2008 issue entitled Patriarchal Dysfunctional Families.

Pearl seems very against adult children living at home into their 20's and 30's having no opportunity to leave or meet a mate.

Thanks! I just finished reading the Cloistered article. He does seem against adult children living at home and very well could have been taking a stab at the Maxwells. These articles were written roughly 6 years ago, so Christopher would have still been living at home, too.

[SPHASH]

Interesting! I'd love to read that little tidbit!

[mystikchick17]

Michael Pearl might be a reprehensible human being in all other respects, but these paragraphs are pretty much Sarah Maxwell to a T:

We call it by different names. Today it is the Cloistered Homeschooled Syndrome. Briefly, it is the failure of the parents to understand, appreciate, and respect the individuality of their adult children. They sacrifice the individual identities of their children on the altar of their own emotional needs, making them nurse when they should be killing and dressing their own food, making them obey when they should be learning to command. They seem to think that grown children are God’s gift to them rather than their gift to God. Through letters and personal contact, we see more and more of this cult-like isolationism, parents demanding absolute allegiance to the family group, and fearing outside contact might break up their “fellowship.†Adult kids who want to launch out on their own are told that they are rebellious and disloyal and are causing grief to those who have nurtured them. Emotionally needy parents manipulate their grown children into remaining loyal to the unit. Thirty-year-old daughters sit at home acting as surrogate mothers, watching their prospects to ever be a mother dwindle....

You cannot stop a tree from growing without killing it or deforming it. Likewise, every year of one’s life up until about the age of twenty-one or twenty-two is a year of radical change and development. Some parents are trying to stop that development, clinging to their teenagers like they were six years old. We have observed the victims many times. They either flee their chains in anger, or they are slowly smothered into inordinate submission, and their personalities die as they merge into the ego of their dependent parents.

It is now become a disease of epic proportions. We call them PDFs, Patriarchal Dysfunctional Families. The children are treated as permanent property of the parents. If they don’t marry, and many of them never have the opportunity, they remain at home as a sort of indentured servant, never rising to the status of an adult, always under authority of the head of the clan, the Patriarch Daddy. Don’t snicker. A lot of kids are hurting. And if you want to see something scary, try to conduct a betrothal with two patriarchal mothers involved. It is uggggly.

Daughter sits at home serving the younger children and doing Mama’s chores—waiting for God’s choice. Daddy and Mama hold their merchandise guardedly, waiting for a buyer who never comes.

It's almost eerie how spot-on this article is for Sarah's situation.

Sarah, RUN. We'll get you to NYC and you can commiserate with ex-ultra Orthodox Jews with whom you may have more in common with than you realize, and everything will be ok.

[lilith]

Thanks! I just finished reading the Cloistered article. He does seem against adult children living at home and very well could have been taking a stab at the Maxwells. These articles were written roughly 6 years ago, so Christopher would have still been living at home, too.

Michael Pearl throws his kids into marriage ASAP cause he's terrified of sexual sin. He accepts that humans are sexual creatures, and in his world the only answer to that is marriage. It's the same reason I foresee young marriages for the Anderson kids, another family obsessed with sexual sin.

Whereas the Maxwells...... I honestly think that Steve thinks he can turn off his kid's sexualities til the scheduled time - and the scheduled time for boys is when they buy a home and god brings a bride, for girls it's when they need to serve their husbands. Til then they're "children" and children don't have sexual needs in Steve's world. The Andersons and Pearls think that their kids would commit sexual acts the second they have the chance, Steve Maxwell has brainwashed his kids not to even want anything he doesn't approve of. His psychological conditioning goes way deeper than the beatings the Pearls and Andersons rely on. Or it could just be an example of what many say - spanked kids just learn not to get caught - and their parents awareness of that.

[latraviata]

Michael Pearl might be a reprehensible human being in all other respects, but these paragraphs are pretty much Sarah Maxwell to a T:

It's almost eerie how spot-on this article is for Sarah's situation.

Sarah, RUN. We'll get you to NYC and you can commiserate with ex-ultra Orthodox Jews with whom you may have more in common with than you realize, and everything will be ok.

This paragraph was written by Michael Pearl???

[WonderingInWA]

This paragraph was written by Michael Pearl???

Yes, directly from his website of archived articles. This one is entitled "Cloistered Homeschool Syndrome" and is from 2008. You can find it in its entirety by going to No Greater Joy and doing a search on archived articles.

[kpmom]

There was another, similar article he wrote where he talked about a hypothetical family of 8 who are sitting at home, unmarried and isolated. The article said men aren't interested in the female siblings because they have no spark and aren't lively.

I wish I could find that article because I thought it was so obviously about the Maxwells. I searched their archives but am not seeing it.

We discussed it either here or when FJ was on yuku.

[SPHASH]

Just read the article and the letters in it. I wonder if this letter was written by Rebekah Keller McDonald: Dear Mr. and Mrs. Pearl,

I have just read your article, “Cloistered Homeschool Syndromeâ€, and just want to stand on a chair and holler, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!! I am a homeschool product whose parents raised as an individual, with an intricate part of our close family, but with unique giftings. By the age of 14, I was an equal with my mom and dad, helping to raise my five younger siblings, not as a slave, but as my mom’s partner and “right hand woman.†As her peer, I learned through her example wifehood and mothering. I was her buddy and friend, and she was my mentor and role model. My parents realized that I had a call for missions on my life,  and I spent my childhood and teen years nurturing independence and life skills so that I would be prepared for when we would be parted. As I write this from my living room in India, where I have served with my husband as a missionary for three years, I can’t help but feel grieved for those of my friends who just became an extension of their parents, or those who got fed up and left the fold. Either way, they never saw life with God as an adventure, because the only future they had was the one carefully crafted by their parents. Thank you again for your article. I pray that it serves as a wake-up call for parents before it is too late. God bless you!

—Rebekah

[Milly-Molly-Mandy]

I wouldn't say that Rebecca is delayed. She's clueless, but not delayed. If I had to guess I'd say that in conversation Rebecca would appear far more lucid and intelligent than Sarah. What the Maxwell's have that Sarah's family doesn't is that they have a middle class aesthetic. They look smarter and wealthier. If Rebecca was thinner and better dressed I don't think she'd get classified as delayed. Even her blog writing is far more coherent and less stilted than the Maxwells. I wonder if she was allowed to read some real books while at the SOTDRT. Plus she seems to have a lot more freedom, so perhaps she's able to do wild and crazy things like pick up a novel at the Goodwill or the library. I appreciate that she doesn't care about normal conventions like appearance but also wonder how she can think that she'll get herself a husband in the look don't talk/touch world of the fundies if she doesn't improve upon the outward looks. It's a sad situation all around.

I saw a comment (since deleted) on one of her blog posts that recommended she buy trim healthy mama's-I googled it, a diet book written by Nancy Cambell of Above Rubies daughters.

People commented after the post saying oh ignore her, your prince won't care about how you look, only your heart. But I think fundies care just as much, if not more about appearances and weight. It's like a godly thing to be slim. I think Rebecca Eleventy will be single for a long long time. Sadly. And agree she doesn't seem delayed. Just not middle class.

[16strong]

Holy mother. I never though I'd agree with Michael Pearl on anything. Don't get me wrong, I still think he's an evil, creepy person, but this article says so perfectly what most of us believe about the Maxwells and other cloistered fundie families.

[Milly-Molly-Mandy]

Holy mother. I never though I'd agree with Michael Pearl on anything. Don't get me wrong, I still think he's an evil, creepy person, but this article says so perfectly what most of us believe about the Maxwells and other cloistered fundie families.

Me too!

[sparkles]

I don't think there's much doubt that these articles very pointedly refer to the Maxwells. There must have been a major falling out between the two families at some point. Teri frequently wrote about Debi's books and Debi guest-wrote a Cirner at least once. Hmm...

Interesting comments here.

whitewashedfeminist.wordpress.com/2008/08/15/just-to-prove-that-we-dont-hate-the-pearls/

[lilith]

I saw a comment (since deleted) on one of her blog posts that recommended she buy trim healthy mama's-I googled it, a diet book written by Nancy Cambell of Above Rubies daughters.

People commented after the post saying oh ignore her, your prince won't care about how you look, only your heart. But I think fundies care just as much, if not more about appearances and weight. It's like a godly thing to be slim. I think Rebecca Eleventy will be single for a long long time. Sadly. And agree she doesn't seem delayed. Just not middle class.

Appearances matter so much in the fundie world cause young men aren't allowed to get to know young women til they are courting. The only thing they have to go on is appearances.