M Is For Mama - making quiverfull look modern

[nastyhobbitses]

On 8/4/2016 at 2:22 PM, slickcat79 said:

That's a fairly recent post so I'm assuming it's still accurate. If so, I give her a so-far, so-good on her approach to homeschooling. To be successful at it as a QF parent, you really have to supplement in some way, and she's used an experienced teacher in her mother, a private school and a co-op. She also shows a willingness to adapt styles to their own situations, which is a major benefit of homeschooling that most fundies throw out the window. 

I do kind of side-eye teaching christian apologetics to grade-schoolers when they aren't effectively learning things like geography and foreign language, but at least the english curriculum looks pretty extensive.

Silly, you don't need to know about those heathen foreign countries unless you're going to go there to convert those poor benighted people who aren't the exact type of Christian that you are!

[Rhetorica]

1 hour ago, akinom said:

Their "starter home" was the same size as the house my parents built after being married and both working full time for ten years... Is this normal in the US, to consider 1800sq feet a "cute" "starter home"?

Only if you make as much money as they apparently do. 

[slickcat79]

8 hours ago, akinom said:

Their "starter home" was the same size as the house my parents built after being married and both working full time for ten years... Is this normal in the US, to consider 1800sq feet a "cute" "starter home"?

Not really, no, although it kind of depends on where you live. I live in a low-to-moderately priced city, and I'm buying my first house in an urban neighborhood. It's just over 1000 sq ft, and would not suit if I had or intended to have kids. She does say they lived in a rural area in east TX, so I'm sure the house didn't cost as much as it would have elsewhere.

I think most QF families who self-build their own house will probably end up living more like the Coghlans. And that looked like some kind of hell.

[December]

9 hours ago, ladyaudley said:

the ugly shows its head again in the latest post, where she discloses she no longer shops at Target because their gender neutral bathrooms offer an inroad for voyeurs and paedophiles. 

Pretty home decor photos can't cover up ugly in someone's heart. I like how she notes even if Target had a family bathroom (i.e. something that would solve her imaginary issues) she still wouldn't shop there. So, even if they provided an acceptable alternative, it wouldn't really make it acceptable in her eyes -- despite her claims that she doesn't expect Target to share her Biblical values. Hypocrisy, much? 

On 8/6/2016 at 3:25 PM, Red Hair, Black Dress said:

They're going to need a bigger house unless she intends to pull a Kendra from "Catholic all Year".  Who has her 8 children in 2 bedrooms -- one for boys and one for girls

I think the Schupes (Large Families on Purpose) win this one. 9 kids in 2 bedrooms (separated by gender).  

8 hours ago, akinom said:

Their "starter home" was the same size as the house my parents built after being married and both working full time for ten years... Is this normal in the US, to consider 1800sq feet a "cute" "starter home"?

No, at least nowhere I've lived. Maybe under 1300 or even 1500 sq ft in some areas. But most people buying a starter home are aiming to have 1-3 kids, not eleventy million. 

[warriorblade8857]

On August 6, 2016 at 5:25 PM, Red Hair, Black Dress said:

They're going to need a bigger house unless she intends to pull a Kendra from "Catholic all Year".  Who has her 8 children in 2 bedrooms -- one for boys and one for girls (she has her 13 year old daughter in a room with the one year old baby girl).  This in a house that originally had 10 bedrooms, but they renovated to only have 4 (one guest room).  Don;t get me started on Kendra's wacky notion that children don't need privacy ..... ever.  

This seems common amongst the families we discuss on FJ.

Reminds me of repressive political regimes where people are encouraged to spy on their friends and family and report them to the authorities.

Or maybe that's the point... Gotta keep those kids on a short leash... Make sure there's no room for thoughtcrime....

[PennySycamore]

14 hours ago, akinom said:

Their "starter home" was the same size as the house my parents built after being married and both working full time for ten years... Is this normal in the US, to consider 1800sq feet a "cute" "starter home"?

According to something I read in House Beautiful a few years ago, back in the 60s, the average square footage of a house was about 1500 square feet.  In recent years, it gone up to 2500 square feet.   Lots of people on House Hunters would consider an 1800 square foot house unacceptably small.  The house must have granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, walk-in closets and a huge master bathroom with double vanities.  How did we ever survive without all that?

Btw, the editor-in-chief of House Beautiful thought the trend towards upsizing houses was a bit ridiculous and they've had lots of articles about thriving in small spaces since then.

[lawfulevil]

I suppose 1800 square feet IS a "starter" size if you're planning to keep going until your uterus decamps in disgust.

 

 

[ladyaudley]

7 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

Lots of people on House Hunters would consider an 1800 square foot house unacceptably small.  

the average house in the UK is 818 square foot.... which, as a German, I think is tiny, but still. The one we just bought is 1000 square foot. It's small, but not minute. My mother's house is 1800 square foot and I would never consider that a "starter" home! 

[akinom]

My house is 1100 sq feet and it's considered on the small side for a family, but not unusually small. We have two kids and think it's just right, but when it was built in 1975 it had four bedrooms so I assume it was meant for a family of five. I'm in Sweden.

[Coy Koi]

39 minutes ago, ladyaudley said:

the average house in the UK is 818 square foot.... which, as a German, I think is tiny, but still. The one we just bought is 1000 square foot. It's small, but not minute. My mother's house is 1800 square foot and I would never consider that a "starter" home! 

Wow, that does seem pretty small for the average. My apartment is about 850 sq ft, and I live here with my daughter. I wouldn't really want any more people living here, although of course I could deal with it if I had to. A LOT of my neighbors have families of 5 or more in the same size apartment, and that would drive me crazy. But they seem fine with it.

I'm kind of surprised that the average house size in the US is as large as it is. I know plenty of people who live in houses that are around 2500 sq ft, but I also know lots of people in much smaller apartments. But I guess it's a lot different here in Seattle (which is crowded and expensive) than it is in a lot of other parts of the country.

I recently read that Hong Kong has the smallest average house size in the world (or at least one of the smallest) at about 450 sq ft.

[Four is Enough]

The six of us, plus a dog, two cats, a lizard, a snake, two frogs, and some fish lived in 3800 square feet until we renovated the basement and added a fifth bedroom, a third bathroom, and a third rec space.  Now that one is out, one is on the way out, and the last two are being booted out eventually, we are DOWNSIZING! This house would be great for a large family and is in a good school district.

Our house is what happens when two kids who grew up in row houses of about 800 sf meet, marry, and build a house together. Big, Bigger, Biggest!!

My advice: resist the temptation to go huge. You'll just feel the need to fill the space with junk. And you'll have to heat it and cool it and repair it and mow the lawn and fix stuff and replace stuff and so on..

[Petrel]

7 minutes ago, Four is Enough said:

My advice: resist the temptation to go huge. You'll just feel the need to fill the space with junk. And you'll have to heat it and cool it and repair it and mow the lawn and fix stuff and replace stuff and so on..

Yeah my experience going from one-bedroom to two-bedroom apartments to 1500 sq ft to 2250 sq ft is that junk expands to fill the space available. 

[Loveday]

1 hour ago, Four is Enough said:

The six of us, plus a dog, two cats, a lizard, a snake, two frogs, and some fish lived in 3800 square feet until we renovated the basement and added a fifth bedroom, a third bathroom, and a third rec space.  Now that one is out, one is on the way out, and the last two are being booted out eventually, we are DOWNSIZING! This house would be great for a large family and is in a good school district.

Our house is what happens when two kids who grew up in row houses of about 800 sf meet, marry, and build a house together. Big, Bigger, Biggest!!

My advice: resist the temptation to go huge. You'll just feel the need to fill the space with junk. And you'll have to heat it and cool it and repair it and mow the lawn and fix stuff and replace stuff and so on..

My house is not as big as yours, 'only' about 2300 square feet, but this is so true. We've been here for over 30 years, I guess you could say it was our 'starter' home; we got an extremely good deal on it at the time and honestly didn't know what to do with all the space, especially me as I'd come from a very small three-room apartment. Well, needless to say we figured it out, and after raising two kids our house is rapidly closing in on us with all the crap we've accumulated over the years. I'm trying to reduce the clutter, but it's hard when one kid is still living here, and my husband is a packrat who loves to thrift store shop (so do I, but I also like to donate back, while he's not so fond of that!  ). I'm dreading the time when we decide to move to a smaller house--my books alone will take months to sort through and pack! 

[Four is Enough]

Loveday, I've already started the decluttering, but the husband will locate a donation bag and go through it.. so i feel your pain. I have to organize, sort, and discard or donate while he's out of the house, or .... it stays.

AACCKK!!

[AuLait]

Our starter home was 1200sqf. We had two kids while living there. We moved to a 1700sqf home and had two more kids. 6 people in a 3 bedroom house was tight, especially when the big kids started wanting (needing!) their own spaces. We just moved to a 3600 sqf home with 5 bedrooms. Its really nice. We could do with less room but we host a LOT (lived here 5 months and have hosted close to 10 gatherings and multiple family/friends staying with us while in town). The layout is such that we don't feel isolated from each other and our junk has not yet expanded... but we did downsize a ton before moving. 

In my area (greater Seattle) 1800sqf would be a largish starter home but that is more a function of housing costs vs what is out there. Most the new homes that are being built here are over 2,000sqf.

[Loveday]

2 hours ago, Four is Enough said:

Loveday, I've already started the decluttering, but the husband will locate a donation bag and go through it.. so i feel your pain. I have to organize, sort, and discard or donate while he's out of the house, or .... it stays.

YES! That's exactly what mine does!  I have to do any decluttering when he isn't around, and then take the stuff directly to the thrift store before he gets home. Otherwise, I'll find things I thought I'd donated sitting out in the garage or back on a shelf. Drives me nuts! 

[lawfulevil]

Our first was ~1200 and he'd lived there for years before he met me. He can be a major packrat and it was a wall to wall cluttered mess when I married him. We managed to reduce that somewhat over the years but it wasn't ideal even last year. When we were getting ready to sell, all the advice said to pack up anything you absolutely can't live without- the house shows a lot better without so much stuff in it. We didn't have anywhere to put that many boxes, so I got a Groupon for a storage unit. While we were showing he got used to the house being very clean and minimal and started to prefer how peaceful it is.

About 90% of what went into the storage unit went directly to Goodwill after we moved to the new house because he'd had enough time to detach and get used to the new normal. So when you read advice about "never get a storage unit"- well, a lot of the time it's a waste of money but sometimes it works. It is kind of the extreme solution, and the storage unit cost a fair amount of money- but since it wasn't going "away forever" he didn't feel the need to inspect every box.

[Anonymousguest]

Or first house was around 800sqft, we've had 2000sqft, 3500, and now have around 6000. There are 11 of us living here now but I know I'm privileged and spoiled.  Our doors are always open,  and we often have non related people staying here. 

[ChairmanMeow]

On 2 August 2016 at 11:17 PM, refugee said:

We had some of these at our old church. Energetic, cheerful, fashionable young ladies (cute, not frumpy) who grew up and married and are now fashionably having a baby every other year while blogging and Pinteresting and running an Etsy store and still looking (at least in the pictures) cute and perky and like they have it all together.

They're out there, for sure, promoting with grace and glitz a poisonous mindset and worldview. Even though they do it well, they're of the mistaken impression that because they're managing, everybody should be able to. And everybody should, anyway, because it's the biblical way to live.

How do these women manage it? QF or not, there's only one of me, I can't keep up with the housework and I can barely put on makeup. Of course I am physically disabled these days (you wouldn't know unless I told you) but I *do* get envious of these women who are put together so nicely. It actually makes me feel like a failure. And I only have animal headships!

[lawfulevil]

Well, I'll tell you how my mother (and many of her friends) did it, @ChairmanMeow

1. Start pushing housework off on your children as soon as they can walk with the threat of physical abuse if it isn't good enough. Anything that's even sort of physically possible- forget whether it's age appropriate.

2. The public areas of the house (for the Instagram generation, any room you plan to photograph in the next few days, for my mother the downstairs) should be immaculate. Everywhere else can be a total dumpster fire.

3. Similarly, expenses can be prioritized the same way. Public areas and the master bedroom >>>> kid areas. My folks got a really fancy living room set while my bed was still a crib mattress (in the fourth grade). Adult food >>>> kid food. Hell, adult dinner out >>> kid medical care.

4. You can shuffle kid stuff around! 2 or 3 outfits that aren't embarrassing per kid, for pictures and visits from relatives. Everything else can be hand-me-downs or cheap thrift shop finds. Fit is very optional, and that lifetime of foot problems from a series of too-small shoes... well that's a problem for adult versions of your children, aka somebody else. Presents from relatives only need to stick around long enough to be photographed unless they live in town, otherwise you can re-sell them immediately. Kids don't need toys, books, or clothes, don't be silly... and it's hard to maintain all that white on white if your kids have toys anyway.

5. Their Etsy store is almost always hand-assembled types of cruft, or fairly basic sewing projects, or "handmade" candles or soap. If you look at the ingredients for their soap bases, they always match SUSPICIOUSLY well to pre-made soap bases from companies like Brambleberry, down to the scents. Even the molds usually come from the same places. The only "handmade" part is microwaving and stirring and pouring.

6. People who are big enough assholes actually make money from MLMs. My mother was way into Discovery Toys. Tonya makes money from DoTerra. One of my mom's friends had a pink Cadillac. But MOST people lose money at it.

7. You can save a TON of money if you get rid of all your kids' pets the second they quit being adorable and tiny. That kitten or puppy will only be a cute baby for 6 months, and after that comes more than a decade of food and vet bills. Just get rid of them! If people start to get weird about your revolving door of animals, keep them, just don't ever get them any vet care or anything but the cheapest grocery store brand food and hope they die very young.

8. Your children only need as much health and dental care as the state mandates. The life-long health problems they'll have from getting rheumatic fever or rarely seeing a dentist... those are someone else's problem!

9. You should probably get them braces, though, people notice that shit. But use the worst, shittiest orthodontist in town. He's cheap for a reason, but who cares? Bonus: if he molests your kid you'll get money from the class action lawsuit.

10. Don't save for college, or help with it at all. Like, at all. And keep counting them on your income taxes until they age out, even though you don't support them at all. Even if they get married and it's definitely tax fraud.

11. If you're feeling spunky, take out a couple credit cards in their name. They'll probably pay them off instead of prosecuting. After all, you're their parent!

12. Spend all that money and time you "saved" on you. You deserve it!

[lawfulevil]

Please nobody read that as a plea for internet hugs, I'm 31 now and my life is fine. That isn't the point. All I'm saying is that this new brand of fake-perfect mommy isn't any different from the old versions and is just as damaging. I'm sure that someone somewhere has a super-fast metabolism and is so energetic and positive and well-off that they can sustain the perfect on-trend lifestyle completely authentically while turning out genuinely well-adjusted kids. But most people can't, and these expectations and the performance it takes to meet them for normal people is profoundly damaging.

Instagram- where bone thin people constantly post 9000 calorie desserts.

The more "aspirational" shit we all see, the less we're able to process it as fantasy.

[nastyhobbitses]

On 8/9/2016 at 1:50 AM, PennySycamore said:

According to something I read in House Beautiful a few years ago, back in the 60s, the average square footage of a house was about 1500 square feet.  In recent years, it gone up to 2500 square feet.   Lots of people on House Hunters would consider an 1800 square foot house unacceptably small.  The house must have granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, walk-in closets and a huge master bathroom with double vanities.  How did we ever survive without all that?

Btw, the editor-in-chief of House Beautiful thought the trend towards upsizing houses was a bit ridiculous and they've had lots of articles about thriving in small spaces since then.

I love playing the House Hunters drinking game: Granite countertops? Drink. Stainless steel appliances? Drink. The master bedroom is too small? Drink. For the International version: drink when it becomes clear that the person/people moving basically want to live in a postcard and do not seem particularly inclined to actually learn about the realities of living in a foreign country. Also drink when they whine about houses in Foreign Country being too small/having weird bathrooms/not accepting Granite Countertops as the one true lord and savior.

[JMarie]

If a potential homebuyer complains about carpeting and calls it "gross" or "germy"?  Drink.

[lawfulevil]

This drinking game sounds like the express lane to alcohol poisoning...

[treehugger]

Right now, we are living, with two kids and a dog, in a 650 sq ft house.  We are moving, in a month, to an 1800 sq ft house.  I am so excited for a little more space I can hardly stand it.  One plus side of tiny house living us that you have no room for crap you don't need/use, so packing is a relative breeze.