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Teri Maxwell's latest Mom's Corner-Depression and Scheduling


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I'm really glad I didn't grow up with one of those charts.

The worst spankings in my mind were the ones that were announced ahead of time: "You are going to get a spanking when we get home." I still remember that sick feeling of dread as I tried to carry on doing whatever it was we were doing, visiting with friends, shopping for clothes, going to back to school night, etc. Those were far worse then the immediate spankings when Mom was angry and lashed out. The planned spankings always seemed too cold and calculated and too much about causing maximum pain and you had so much more time to think about them which was a punishment in itself.

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Thanks for your understanding words. I still cringe and want to duck and cover when I post about my parenting, expecting people to heap imprecations on my head and ask, if I was born with a brain, then why did it take me so long to switch it on?

One of the ways the if-then chart was sold to me was as a way to prevent abuse, amazingly enough, but it made sense to me. (My mom broke a wooden spoon on the unprotected backside of one of my siblings, she hit him so hard and furiously.) If the chart said "three swats" that was all. No matter how angry the parent.

Actually, I was taught by my mentors never to spank in anger. You sent the kid to your room to sit and await their fate while you prayed and remembered you, too, were a sinner and had disobeyed God as much or more than your kid had disobeyed you. Only when you were calm and rational did you go and deal with the kid.

Some might call this emotional abuse, the awful anticipation of the kid sitting there waiting, but it really was a help for me. One of the things I was so afraid of was losing control and hurting my kids. I didn't, but I could have. I was afraid of my anger and needed to learn how to cope. Y'know, like that advice about taking a long shower when the baby won't stop screaming and you've done absolutely everything. (Our pediatrician said there was nothing really wrong with that particular kid and some children are just wired that way, to let off tensions they can't talk away because, frankly, they're babies.) The shower is hot, steamy and relaxing and drowns out the screaming for a few moments so you can reclaim yourself.

Anyhow, there were times (I can't tell you if it was majority or minority) when I'd rejoin the kid and there would be no spanking at all, just a long talk. When I was rational and not angry, I could distinguish between childish... what? Irresponsibility? Poor judgment? ...and malice or deliberate rebellion. (My kids weren't what I'd call rebellious anyhow. Opinionated, maybe, but we were trying to raise critical thinkers, not blind robots.)

I have good kids. Malice? Almost inconceivable.

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The sad thing is that I don't believe real therapy would help Terri because she still has to go back to that house. It is hard enough for people with depression when they have a healthy support system. Terri can get all the professional help out there but still make little to no progress because she goes home to crazy town where her husband is king. Besides, I can't imagine her depression lifting and her finally being able to see clearly and what she sees is that she has basically helped her husband destroy their children.

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Thanks for your understanding words. I still cringe and want to duck and cover when I post about my parenting, expecting people do heap imprecations on my head and ask, if I was born with a brain, then why did it take me so long to switch it on?

Forgive me, but I'd really like to add my two cents. Parenting is HARD. If there were one right way, we'd all do it. The simple fact that there are so many "programs" out there tells us that no on has that magic one answer.

It's not about taking so long to switch on your brain, it's about fighting through exhaustion, fear, anxiety, conditioning, pressure, self-condemnation, hormones....you get the idea, and THEN deciding what kind of parent you will be. As we've seen, clearly, over and over, it's much much easier to let someone else tell you what to do, especially if they're also telling you that this is the right way! Especially, ESPECIALLY if God said it was the right way!!!

The sheer fact that you can not only look back on your early years with clarity and wisdom, but that you broke free for the sake of your children, and chose a better path, speaks volumes about you as a person, and as a parent. It screams "Here is an excellent, compassionate parent who was willing to struggle and fight until she found a better way." Parents like you are my light and my inspiration, because I - like all parents - struggle mightily with frustration, and the dreaded "doing it wrong." I figure if parents who were brought up with terrible examples, and fed terrible pressure, can still succeed; I can too.

So, far from heaping imprecations, I really, really admire you. (with SEVERE capsloc, even!! :) This parenting gig is not for the faint of heart.

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I agree with the above. I grew up in the 70s in a non-fundie family and spanking/smacking was normal child discipline. I'm not going to look back through rose-tinted glasses and say it did me no harm, but it is what it is. I was lucky not to have mad fundie parents and I think even they would be horrified if anyone were to spank one of their grandchildren! "When we know better, we do better", I guess.

I studied education at degree level, and I did a lot of volunteer work in schools before that, and I remember it took quite a while for me to process the idea that corporal punishment might be wrong, because of my own background and because I went to a strictish church back then. If I hadn't picked that education career route, I would probably have repeated my own experience, because I genuinely thought "bad" or whiny behaviour was sign a child needed a smacked bottom, until I was introduced to different ideas and methods.

I think what you have achieved @refugee is admirable because you've ended the cycle and you've set a different course for your children and their children. I also admire you for speaking up about it which helps educate others. :)

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I am sorry that you had a hard time as a child, and that you then struggled in parenting. :cry:

Congratulations though on making the journey out of there! :)

Thanks so much for confirming what I thought about the Maxwells. They have long since removed evidence of the spanking stuff from their website, for PR reasons I guess, but there are odd bits on the Wayback machine.

The Doorposts chart is exactly the one they recommend, and they definitely had pictures of those wooden spoons on there when they showed a sample chart, back in the day.

I hope I will be forgiven for quoting this conversation in its entirety because I want to increase the possibility that a questioning Maxwell follower, perhaps an IT On Ramp customer or a reader of Sarah Maxwell's Moody family children's stories may one day google and find themselves led to this page.

Steve and Teri Maxwell of Titus2.com you are lying, hypocritical child abusers. You have utterly failed your own children and you are willfully spreading your hateful ideas around to other young, struggling families. If there is a God, then you can be sure your sins will find you out.

ETA : if/then chart from Doorposts, with wooden spoons visible

The pic is the largest size downloadable.

The behaviour for which their sample chart suggests three swats is for arguments between siblings. The bible verse, is American Standard Version

"A fool's lips enter into contention, And his mouth calleth for stripes."

Oh God. That If-Then chart. I knew I'd seen it somewhere... lo and behold, Erika Shupe has one. She's a Maxwell suck-up if ever I saw one; hawks MOTH, MOTC and MOTS, and they eat Maxwell Blurgh-itos sometimes too.

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The sad thing is that I don't believe real therapy would help Terri because she still has to go back to that house. It is hard enough for people with depression when they have a healthy support system. Terri can get all the professional help out there but still make little to no progress because she goes home to crazy town where her husband is king. Besides, I can't imagine her depression lifting and her finally being able to see clearly and what she sees is that she has basically helped her husband destroy their children.

I doubt she is still suffering clinical levels of depression. Or at least, I doubt it is in any way as severe or constant now her family are grown up. She probably has ingrained "depressed" ways of thinking, but with which she has now become accustomed to managing with scripture and routine.

The only way I can see the scales vaguely falling from Teri's eyes would be if someone left the cult and if that led to a massive rift. I imagine Steve has already prepared her to be ready to shun a single leaver. But if there were a seismic shift in the family structure, I think she would disintegrate. My bet would be that she would become a depressed martyr in that circumstance, though, and would both blame and cling to Steve.

I don't see her as a person capable of taking responsibility for her thoughts and actions. I would love to see it, but I think she is too invested. They are .... codependent? Is that the right expression, I don't know? She has been enabling Steve forever, and in recent years she has gotten a huge payback from her grown children and her fans. I think she is as likely as Michelle Duggar is to ever recognise how shitty a parent she has been all her life.

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Oh God. That If-Then chart. I knew I'd seen it somewhere... lo and behold, Erika Shupe has one. She's a Maxwell suck-up if ever I saw one; hawks MOTH, MOTC and MOTS, and they eat Maxwell Blurgh-itos sometimes too.

Erika *spank* Shupe *smile*. :angry-banghead:

I'd love "eating Maxwell Blurgh-itos" to be a user title! :lol:

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So this may be an unpopular opinion but I actually like the idea of an if-then chart. Perhaps not exactly the same as the Maxwell's, but I think kids need consistency and this helps with that. For instance if your kids know that hitting a sibling will lead to a 10 minute time out (or whatever) the kid knows that this will be the punishment. It allows both parents to give the same punishment and then they know that they can't get away with anything, no matter which parent is there. I think it also helps the parent (who may be angry or busy) to give out a fair and consistent consequence that was already decided when the parent had time to think it over.

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So this may be an unpopular opinion but I actually like the idea of an if-then chart. Perhaps not exactly the same as the Maxwell's, but I think kids need consistency and this helps with that. For instance if your kids know that hitting a sibling will lead to a 10 minute time out (or whatever) the kid knows that this will be the punishment. It allows both parents to give the same punishment and then they know that they can't get away with anything, no matter which parent is there. I think it also helps the parent (who may be angry or busy) to give out a fair and consistent consequence that was already decided when the parent had time to think it over.

Nope, I said this on page 1 of the thread:

The thing that gets my goat about all of these evil schedules and books and strategies is that each one promises an outcome that is desirable, and includes a rationale that has a superficial glimmer of common sense underpinning it, to appeal to already-stressed parents who are desperate for help.

Schedules, behaviour charts, 1-2-3 Magic - it's as though the fundies start their business schemes by plagiarising some of the genuinely good material that has been available on the self-help market for decades. But somehow they add a helping of Sin and Jesus and manage to turn out the most horrible instruments of abuse known to man. :evil:

I don't personally love behavioural consequences to be set in stone, because they only take into account individual behaviour and not underlying context, eg whether a child might be hungry or tired. Also, setting out consequences in stone may serve as an encouragement to some more fractious children. 10 mins time out for the satisfaction of beating up an annoying sibling with Mommy's wooden spoon.... ? Erm, yes please!

I accept that rules and charts have their place, however, as long as they are "seasoned with grace".

What is perverse about the DoorKnob if/then chart though, is that it takes a pre-existing "neutral" idea and turns it into something nasty and abusive. Who the fucking hell come up with the idea of cutting and glueing wooden spoons onto a chart to let children know how soundly they would be beaten for engaging in various quite normal childhood behaviours? Who would do that?

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I'm 100% sure that Sarah remembers her mom's struggles with depressions because it's written on the Moody books. The Moody mom is always away sleeping.

Agree!! I'm sure she remembers it!

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The sad thing is that I don't believe real therapy would help Terri because she still has to go back to that house. It is hard enough for people with depression when they have a healthy support system. Terri can get all the professional help out there but still make little to no progress because she goes home to crazy town where her husband is king. Besides, I can't imagine her depression lifting and her finally being able to see clearly and what she sees is that she has basically helped her husband destroy their children.

I have to agree w/ u!! Well said!!

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Oh so this is where the if-then chart is from. I'm sure my parents had a homemade one on our pinboard. But it seems to be gone now. Maybe it became unnecessary. I dunno.

I probably would have lost my appetite completely if we'd read the 'Great Conversationalists' book at the dining table before dinner. Instead of afterwards. Thankfully we stopped after a few chapters. The book was sitting on the coffee table for a few months, but something about the cover attracted a ridiculous amount of dust, which refused to be wiped off. What do the Maxwells make their books out of? In any case, the example 'conversations' in the book were horribly unnatural and stilted, and really uncomfortable to read aloud. Do the Maxwell kids actually talk like that? :pull-hair:

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Agree!! I'm sure she remembers it!

Teri would disagree. I can't remember if it was an old Corner or a post on the now defunct Moms board, but Teri said that God magically (ok she didn't actually say "magically") made the kids forget her depression and outbursts when they were little.

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Teri would disagree. I can't remember if it was an old Corner or a post on the now defunct Moms board, but Teri said that God magically (ok she didn't actually say "magically") made the kids forget her depression and outbursts when they were little.

Yeah... ok. I wonder how many spoons were on the line that said "mention mom's actions" I'll bet there was some magical deprogramming of them.

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Teri would disagree. I can't remember if it was an old Corner or a post on the now defunct Moms board, but Teri said that God magically (ok she didn't actually say "magically") made the kids forget her depression and outbursts when they were little.

Yes, I remember that (maybe in the "Depression" corner?).

Teri said the two oldest boys did not remember her depression, but interestingly Sarah remembered her "struggling" ( I believe that was the term she used).

I'll see if I can find it.

ETA: Here is the quote from the Depression corner. Supposedly Sarah only remembers Teri struggling one time;

"If it is any encouragement, I asked my older children if they remembered the struggles I had during those early, difficult days of their lives. My older boys (21 and 23) remember nothing negative. Can you believe the Lord can blind our children to what is going on inside of us especially when so much of it is easily visible? My 18 year old daughter only remembers one time that I was really struggling."

Yes, the Lord apparently magically blinded them, but forgot one time to blind Sarah.

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Yes, I remember that (maybe in the "Depression" corner?).

Teri said the two oldest boys did not remember her depression, but interestingly Sarah remembered her "struggling" ( I believe that was the term she used).

I'll see if I can find it.

Since it seems to be interwoven through the Moody books, it seems that yes, Sarah remembers-- whether she can name what she remembers could be a question, but she can describe it in simple terms in her books.

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Thanks kpmom! That was also the post where she discusses her breakthrough idea of stuffing her feelings and pretending to be happy. Seems she passed that one on to Poor Sarah in spades.

I'm with you salex, I'm under no illusion that those children would ever have thought it acceptable to tell their mom they remember her behaving "badly".

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Yes, I remember that (maybe in the "Depression" corner?).

Teri said the two oldest boys did not remember her depression, but interestingly Sarah remembered her "struggling" ( I believe that was the term she used).

I'll see if I can find it.

ETA: Here is the quote from the Depression corner. Supposedly Sarah only remembers Teri struggling one time;

"If it is any encouragement, I asked my older children if they remembered the struggles I had during those early, difficult days of their lives. My older boys (21 and 23) remember nothing negative. Can you believe the Lord can blind our children to what is going on inside of us especially when so much of it is easily visible? My 18 year old daughter only remembers one time that I was really struggling."

Yes, the Lord apparently magically blinded them, but forgot one time to blind Sarah.

This makes sense to me. It might be a sex-linked thing. (Or is the word gender? Or, what?) Pardon me for generalizing, but in our family, the females are sensitive to feelings, while you could hit the males over the head with a two-by-four made up of feelings and they might not notice.

I know not all males are like this, some males of my acquaintance actually seem to be sensitive to and responsive to feelings, but that's not our family experience. (Might have something to do with autistic tendencies, don't know.)

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So this may be an unpopular opinion but I actually like the idea of an if-then chart. Perhaps not exactly the same as the Maxwell's, but I think kids need consistency and this helps with that. For instance if your kids know that hitting a sibling will lead to a 10 minute time out (or whatever) the kid knows that this will be the punishment. It allows both parents to give the same punishment and then they know that they can't get away with anything, no matter which parent is there. I think it also helps the parent (who may be angry or busy) to give out a fair and consistent consequence that was already decided when the parent had time to think it over.

Hmm, I can see where you're coming from. I saw one episode of The Three Day Nanny (similar to Supernanny) where the mum was really lax and the dad was really harsh. It just creates confusion for kids. Like what blessalessi said, though, it's the Maxwellian/Shupian If-Then chart that's worrying, with the number of wooden spoons equating to the soundness of the beating. Fundies take a decent idea and make it sound evil.

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They almost definitely noticed.

However, they probably didn't know what it was or have any way of understanding depression. Most adults can't even identify the outward signs of depression, and they were just children who had no concept of mental illness as a thing at all. They sensed their mom was struggling, and they likely felt it was because of something THEY did. They were probably worried about their mother without knowing why and tried to help and protect her through their behavior.

Saying to your parent "yes, I noticed your mental illness and it really had a negative impact on me." is HARD to do. Not only that, if you've been ingrained from childhood to try and protect or care for a parent, you fight against those instincts even as an adult. The instinctive thing to do is to continue to protect and care for your parent by lying. By protecting them from the truth.

These are people who were trained through various means to always say what their parents wanted to hear. I sincerely doubt they are telling the truth now. I think they are telling Terri what she wants to hear.

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Ugh. She makes me sick. So now not only does she get to pretend to herself that her children were not affected by her depression, she can also pretend that the magic sky God just wiped their memories! This just affirms to her that she and Steve handled it exactly right because God helped.

Who honestly knows what memories those children have? What terrible things they have seen? Imagine growing up with that cold-hearted bastard of a father and a mother that always seemed to disappear (when she was not crying.) And by the way what about the all those first days of school that ended so badly with Teri in tears because the schedule was not met? Do the children not remember that? Or is she kidding herself that those days had nothing to do with her depression?

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I don't know what the ages of the three oldest kids were when Teri was going through the worst of her depression; but I can't imagine how they DO NOT remember it if they were elementary school age. I was raised by a clinically depressed mother and my worst memories begin when I was about 9 years old. AS for the "God wiped their memories clean" argument; why theirs and not mine? Or all the other adults who were raised by mentally ill parents.

My opinion is that Christopher and Nathan knew what they were supposed to say when asked about this. To avoid causing conflict, they simply said "Nope, we don't remember a thing." They'd probably seen Teri burst into tears before at the mention of her illness and knew not to be responsible for that.

I've been thinking about the Maxwell's rigid scheduling; we see that Christopher definitely has adopted that bizarre practice. I wonder if he schedules Anna's communication with her parents. Is she allowed so many minutes each week to speak to her mother? I wonder if she's allowed to pick up the phone just to ask her about a parenting issue, or to share something that one of the kids said or did. Or does she have to wait until her scheduled phone call day and squeeze all her news into a certain number of minutes?

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I had insomnia last night and read all the mom's corners. In addition to the greatest hits of Pepsi is an idol and I pray to God to give me three Christmas decorations, it's mostly just repeats of scheduling, chores, children arguing, and contentment. And when read all together make Teri sound so, so unhappy

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