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M Is For Mama - making quiverfull look modern


Iamhispurity

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On 9/5/2016 at 10:10 AM, alba said:

Well, I fell down the rabbit hole a little bit this morning, and came across her Master Closet reveal (not gonna lie, I kind of love these house decorating posts, even though I'm currently sitting in a half-painted room filled with half-packed cardboard boxes and a laundry basket full of clothes that need to be taken to charity):

misformama.net/2011/07/master-closet-before-after.html

Too much stuff in too little space? That closet is almost as big as our master bedroom. I mean, I get it. I'd love a gorgeous walk-in closet. But, as someone upthread mentioned, she seems so utterly oblivious to her privilege because, frankly, most people would love to simply HAVE a closet with that much storage space, never mind what's being stored there.

Her closet has 2 separate doors. It's big enough to justify having a CHANDELIER in it (with Tiffany shades, of course!). 

She certainly bought stuff secondhand, and on clearance, so that's a savings, but she still spent $150 on decorative items for a CLOSET. It would make sense if that was for actual shelving or organizational stuff, but most of that was already there. 

Reading her blog is like reading one of those clickbait articles that promises to teach people how to save money, then includes things like "make your daily coffee at home instead of buying from the coffee shop". As if anyone who is really struggling to save money would ever be able to justify spending $5 every day just on coffee :pb_rollseyes:

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Her closet has 2 separate doors. It's big enough to justify having a CHANDELIER in it (with Tiffany shades, of course!). 

She certainly bought stuff secondhand, and on clearance, so that's a savings, but she still spent $150 on decorative items for a CLOSET. It would make sense if that was for actual shelving or organizational stuff, but most of that was already there. 

Reading her blog is like reading one of those clickbait articles that promises to teach people how to save money, then includes things like "make your daily coffee at home instead of buying from the coffee shop". As if anyone who is really struggling to save money would ever be able to justify spending $5 every day just on coffee :pb_rollseyes:



Hahaha I love the clickbait comparison!

When I was unemployed those "how to save money" articles drove me mad. I mean, when you're buying Tesco Value teabags (80 bags for 30p!) and agonising over the fact that your favourite author's newest book isn't at the library, it's pretty disheartening when the "advice" is to stop buying Starbucks and magazines.
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Pillows (like crib bumpers) are a huge NO NO for babies because if they roll over/startle/move their head wrong they can suffocate.  They don't have the strength/instincts to re position their head if something gets in the way (and if something's in the way. that thing will block any screaming to alert people, so people won't know until its too late).  Otherwise her sleep advice is reasonable, especially if she does what she says and doesn't push them beyond 15mins of fussing.

But advising the pillow take away all reason from the rest of the post.  Pillows kill.  And even a new born moves around enough for their to be a risk of the pillow going wrong.

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My master closet theme could easily be mistaken for "you still haven't finished unpacking? You moved ALMOST A YEAR AGO!", but only by plebes and rubes, of course. The real theme is very postmodern, so chic. Taped up banker boxes are the new greige. And the other closets? Well, obviously I MEANT to have the entire office closet be unopened boxes of books, and half the guest closet be disorganized crafting/sewing/painting supplies. It's a, uh, metaphor, for um, modern suburban life- the appearance is rows upon rows of orderly boxes, but the inside is a bunch of disorganized shit we're all putting off dealing with and dreams we'll never fulfill. Sure. Obviously.

No, don't be silly, the garage is just a fucking mess, that's not art.

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My master closet theme would be: vintage/custom/couture clothing store erupted, leaving violent scene all over suburban home. 

Seriously, it's rather a mess in there. I've purged, sold, re-purged, sold again, and yet boxes and baskets of things rest in shelves holding bathing suits and glasses and heaven knows what else while clutches are piled and sports jerseys are folded over a bar of my collection of vintage Ralph Lauren blazers that hang next to my favorite beaded vintage dresses and embossed monogram bags. 

I have a weird zany fashion sense, if you couldn't tell from my avatar.

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The pillows are the worst advice, but the fact remains that babies aren't supposed to sleep through the night so early.  It's perfectly normal and healthy for babies to wake up at night!  Swaddling is also controversial.  Swaddling is considered a risk factor for SIDS, among other things.  You can read about that here:

Swaddling 

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I see swaddling is super-in right now and I have to be honest - my kid HATED it.  She loved the Sleepsacks by Halo but she wasn't a swaddling fan.  And now they're selling all sorts of swaddling specific stuff.

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11 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

The pillows are the worst advice, but the fact remains that babies aren't supposed to sleep through the night so early.  It's perfectly normal and healthy for babies to wake up at night!  Swaddling is also controversial.  Swaddling is considered a risk factor for SIDS, among other things.  You can read about that here:

Swaddling 

Umm...SIDS Australia recommends swaddling for the first three months and this is what I tell all the new parents we discharge from hospital everyday. 

After three months no swaddling as baby might roll and needs to be able to push self up. 

 

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Misinformed Mama is so bright and shiny and cheerful and Jesus-y and sugary that she makes my teeth ache.

I sincerely hope that her fangirls realize that she has carefully edited and curated her blog to show us this perfect life,  No one with 6.5 children has everything as all together as she shows us -- not even someone as privileged as she is -- unless she has *alot* of help -- all the time-- with everything.

MM admits that her mother does most of the home schooling, but what I suspect she's not admitting is the daily child care and cleaning help she has.

Showing us a spotless, perfectly decorated house is unrealistic.  The rooms look like no one lives in them.  And a spotless house with 6 children doesn't happen easily.  I just cannot believe her statement that her 3 older children keep everything clean for her.  I can believe that *maybe* they help pick things up, but none of them are old enough to clean to spotless.  

What MM shows us is a shiny, perfect, fantasy, aspirational life that fundies want us to believe is completely possible for anyone, no matter how many children they have -- all on one income ( no matter how small) and of course all without outside help.

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On August 9, 2016 at 6:41 AM, 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..

We downsized for this exact reason!

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On 9/6/2016 at 9:12 PM, treehugger said:

Actually, none of the things that she mentions in her sleep training post are red flags to me (and I am a very attachment parenting style mother), except one.  Pillows in a baby's bed are a very big no-no.  So her last point is not medically sound advice, and should not be done.  

Well, snap. There she goes, (nearly) perfect in yet one more way! 

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On September 7, 2016 at 8:01 AM, slickcat79 said:

Her closet has 2 separate doors. It's big enough to justify having a CHANDELIER in it (with Tiffany shades, of course!). 

Excuse me, I didn't see any chandelier. I believe what you mean is the chandy! 

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On 9/4/2016 at 1:38 PM, Shiny said:

We don't do sleepovers, at all. My husband was in law enforcement for a number of years, and many of our social circle still is. Molestation and grooming happens at sleepovers way more than people think. I know not everyone has those concerns, but I can't let my kids do sleepovers knowing what I know. 

 

And, yet, what people still freak out over is the notion of a co-ed sleepover. I admit to doing a double take the first time this came up with my oldest, but after thinking about it for a while (and the way the host family was managing it) I came to realize that less could go wrong at a sleepover than, say, at an empty house at 3:30 pm. By the time my youngest was in HS, it was just, yeah, whatever, gay, straight, boy, girl, trans. . .how are you going to separate them out, anyway? They just all ended up in their sleeping bags on the family room floor like a litter of puppies.

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Well...I went down the rabbit hole. This lady is nothing but an attention whore. Perfect body, home, nails, kid after kid (I'm betting they get little individual attention ala the Duggars) and a couple of sets of grandparents that seemingly share much of the load. She will not stop until until she has a bad outcome or her rectum and uterus prolapse, rendering her less attractive to her herself.

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This!!!   #$%^&#.  THIS is what makes me stabby about the home schooling, fundie, quiverfull-ish, shiny, happy, sugary, Jesus-y, SAHM bloggers like MIsinformed Mama --

(From today's post)  "But I don’t actually care whether my children go to college (if they want to, and it makes sense, more power to them, but if they’d rather learn a trade, I’m all for it)"

This woman is going to steer her children away from college -- even though she went herself.  Makes sense to whom? To the child?  To MM and her husband?  Sense monetarily?  Academically?  Sense in their narrow fundie world with narrow gender role rules?  

 I'll bet cash money she encourages (pushes hard) her daughters to marry at 18 right out of homeschool high school.

I know college isn't for everyone but what kind of parent deliberately holds her child back from education?

I just cannot with this kind of thinking.

(Rant over)

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I hate to agree with her but that's how I feel. My brother's three university degrees didn't make him happy. If he had been happy being a plumber or an artist or whatever then that would have made all of us happy too.

if my son wants to learn a trade I would be supportive. In Australia tradies earn more than many white colour professionals ;)

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College isn't the answer for everyone, and it's only getting more expensive. If you'd be equally happy as a plumber, we need plumbers too!

I googled plumber salary real quick- looks like 40something for journeymen and as much as 100k for master plumbers (and potentially well into the low six figures in high-demand cities). If you start right out of high school, you'd get done with your apprenticeship about the same time as you'd theoretically finish college, but you'd be paid (learn on the job) instead of paying.

Compare that to getting a degree in Anything because that's what everyone told you to do. Average college debt in 2015 was $35,000. Huffpo says 41% of the classes of 2013 and 2014 were making <$25k/yr as of 2015, and only 25% made more than $40k.

And we're going to have a hell of a time trying to outsource plumbers to India, too...

I mean, really, if you're not sure what you're going to do with your degree, trade school seems like a much better bet.

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As far as fundies go, I actually think that's a really reasonable thing to say. She doesn't say that she will discourage her children from going to colleage, she just says she will support them in learning a trade if that's what they prefer. That's a far cry from many other fundies who want their kids to basically do neither. And also, she repeatedly says "children" and never just "sons." Let's hope she means that too!

Now the fact that she repeatedly says she basically just has a lot of kids because that's how she interprets the bible, and not because she wants a lot of kids, THAT I find concerning. In fact, apparently she isn't usually happy when she finds out she is pregnant (though she claims that happiness sets in later).

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Yeah, I don't see anything wrong with that sentence, either (though I haven't had a chance to read the entire post yet).

I have two cousins, both in their late-thirties, early-forties. One comes from a middle-class background, the other, working-class. The former has a PhD while the latter left school at 16 for an apprenticeship. Guess which one built his own 5-bedroom house ten years ago? And guess which one has no year-to-year job security and rents with flatmates?

I'm not criticising either cousin's life choices, but between the two of them the one who made the better financial decision is the one without a degree.

Honestly, I'd argue that a lot of the issues facing uni graduates today stem from this idea that everyone should go to uni - and I say this as someone with two masters degrees. Higher rates of degree attainment create greater competition in the graduate job market, while at the same time degrees are undervalued by employers because they're considered a minimal requirement (which also creates difficulty for people without degrees).

I absolutely believe that everyone who wants to go to university should have that opportunity, free of charge. However, I also believe that teenagers from all backgrounds should be made aware of the breadth of career paths available to them, so they can make an informed decision and choose a career they can thrive in.

So, yeah, I see no problem with parents saying they won't push their kids into uni.

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When I was in high school in the early '80s, there was definitely a sense of "go to college or you'll be flipping burgers the rest of your life."  Well, college didn't work out for me(because reasons), and I did end up working in fast food. And I had a college-prep diploma.

 

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Absolutely! My husband is a top 1% earner with 2 university degrees and a masters so of course some people thrive with university and work. We are incredibly fortunate he graduated at the right time to climb the career ladder the way he did. Very few lawyers graduating these days have the same opportunities 

However I know many people (mainly women) who studied things like arts at university who are earning very little & whose degree actually did not help them in their career at all (so far)

I got a very practical degree (nursing) so feel it's the best of both worlds...for me. 

I was listening to Life Matters (ABC RN podcast for non Aussies) & a women had been homeless. She had studied once her kids left home and got a PHD in her 50s. Never got a job out of it. How much better of would she have been learning a trade or becoming a nurse starting at 49 than spending 8 years at university?

sorry for novel, I just believe in career choices that actually lead to jobs. Trade. University. TAFE. Whatever that is. 

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I think the pressure on kids to get a Degree In Something is a lot like the market for accessibly-priced designer goods. Think logo bags, perfume, overpriced candles and cosmetics, what-have-you. It's typical of the middle class, not really affordable and terribly impractical. With the example of purses- you could get something handmade in the US with much better materials for a third of the price, it just wouldn't say Bottega Veneta or Lanvin or Tod's or whatever. The purpose is to distance oneself from the next lower class. The mental barrier between the "white collar" middle class and the "blue collar" working class still exists, even though the financial underpinnings of that hierarchy are long gone. That's why otherwise rational people are still aghast at the idea of their child deciding to become a bricklayer instead of majoring in art.

My hypothesis is only based on personal experience and observation of trends, don't take it personally- I've just noticed it especially with the more status-conscious individuals of my acquaintance.

WOW was that ever a stuffy way to put that, I apologize. I'm in a pretty funky mood today.

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Firmly against the idea that higher education is equitable to overpriced consumer goods. Even if it's not directly related to the job at hand, a degree can get a person's foot in the door for jobs that they otherwise don't have experience for (since getting "experience" is a complete crapshoot). I work in a large investment bank. At my (low-mid) level, nearly everyone of my generation has at least a BA, but very few of them are in anything related to accounting or business. On the flip side, most people at my level who are older might have an AA in accounting or something similar, but definitely have years of experience. We're at the same place in our careers, but I didn't have to work 25 years to get there. 

Just going to "trade school" is not always a valid option, although it is always wise for parents to consider that for their child if the child has an interest/aptitude. Trade school means investing time and money too, and they're harder to get loans for if you don't have the means. Depending on what you're trying to do, finding a paid apprenticeship can be as hard as finding any other job. Unions are not what they used to be, and are probably going to continue to circle the drain. Skilled trades can be very well-paid, but they also tend to involve a lot of job uncertainty, especially starting out. The fact that you could be making six figures for a full-time job doesn't help you if you can only get seasonal work for companies that aren't even offering benefits. 

Of course, you have to be practical on some level. College costs are skyrocketing, so you have to do something to balance the pros and cons of higher education. Maybe that means going to community college for a year or two, and transferring. Maybe it means living with your parents and commuting to school. Maybe it means integrating (legitimate!) online education. Maybe it really does mean forgoing a 4-year degree in favor of something else, if the option is open to you. It doesn't have to mean tens of thousands in debt for a meaningless piece of paper.  

Drifting back to the actual thread topic, I think Abbie has a unique perspective on "learning a trade" because nearly all of their obviously healthy household income has come from her husband's tech job. If you have a natural aptitude for in-demand skills, you may not need higher education to maximize your experience and income, but that doesn't mean everyone can become the next Zuckerberg. The only thing about her comment that I kind of side-eye, though, is the idea that the kid can go to college if "it makes sense". Maybe she's sincere in saying that, or maybe it's kind of like when the Duggars say that all their kids CHOOSE to enter a courtship instead of dating because their parents make the alternative impossible. 

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I may not be remembering this correctly, but I'm fairly sure the husband has a 4-yer college degree in computer science.

I just see MM being in the same category as so many other fundies.  College was fine for them, but they are adamant their children won't attend.  Bates, for instance, the Maxwells,  Arndts, Botkins -- the list goes on.

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