Maxwell 19: Life is Still Boring

[anjulibai]

2 hours ago, grammyj said:

Meh, call me a cynic, but I see the Spring Grandma's park picnic just an excuse to put out an easy blog. I click on (fall for it every time!), and the Maxes make a little more $$$. I would appreciate it if they told us a bit about their "real" lives. For example, with so many adults living under one roof, there are bound to be disagreements.  How do they deal? What does Steve do all day? Do they have discussions during Bible Time or does Steve just interpret and sermonize? Tell us about theirchurch services.  What does Steve like to preach on? Is  the church growing?   Do they do Outreach?  Do John and Chelsy attend regularly?  Lots of stuff for a "ministry".

I'm not asking to get into their private business. Just more substance in blog.  Lately it's mostly been endless loops of the grandchildren with Annanmary.   And don't get me wrong--they are all gorgeous but the Maxes are such a rare breed. I want to know more about them.  It would also be interesting to know how they vet the responses they allow on their blogs.  What criteria and why.  Seriously, give me some substance.  I gotta say, the Bontragers are giving them  a very serious run for their money.  Agree or not, their blogs are engaging.

I totally agree it would be much more interesting, but their response would be "buy our books to learn more". They don't give their advice away for free. 

[kpmom]

I agree, I don't think Teri is into little kids.  Just going by her pictures, she seems so much more relaxed now that her kids are all grown.

I remember her posts about being in tears at the end of the first day of school because things didn't go well.  And she has posted about being so frustrated with Nathan and Christopher fighting and horsing around like little kids do.  And dealing with her depression at the same time.

I'm not putting her down for it, not everybody is comfortable around little kids, and I think Teri really, really likes order and predictability.  Little kids aren't known for those things.

But, it makes the fact that she was made to feel like she should have more kids than the original three just awful.  And that she was forced into homeschooling even more awful.

I really wonder what would have happened to Teri if Sarah wasn't old enough to help (or take over) with the reversal kids. 

[Ivycoveredtower]

1 hour ago, kpmom said:

I agree, I don't think Teri is into little kids.  Just going by her pictures, she seems so much more relaxed now that her kids are all grown.

I remember her posts about being in tears at the end of the first day of school because things didn't go well.  And she has posted about being so frustrated with Nathan and Christopher fighting and horsing around like little kids do.  And dealing with her depression at the same time.

I'm not putting her down for it, not everybody is comfortable around little kids, and I think Teri really, really likes order and predictability.  Little kids aren't known for those things.

But, it makes the fact that she was made to feel like she should have more kids than the original three just awful.  And that she was forced into homeschooling even more awful.

I really wonder what would have happened to Teri if Sarah wasn't old enough to help (or take over) with the reversal kids. 

I could see it going one of two ways. 1. she wised up and left him after baby four was born. and went to her parents.  or two it would be another Andrea Yeates situation.  I said it in a post that got eaten by the host error but if she had been smart she would have left him when he started to slide hard into Fundyland taking the eldest three and fleeing to her parents who seem to be okay people. she chose to stay though and then popped out five more kids.  a bit scary to think how many they would have had if the Vasectomy had never happened. 

[Eternalbluepearl]

EIGHT kids is a ton for anyone to manage, in my opinion. But for someone who doesn't seem to like kids all that much and had depression? I just can't imagine it. I am on the fence about whether Baby Pearl will have a sibling someday. Two feels like the most I could handle financially and sanity-wise. Why do fundies take on so much? I know the Maxwells like to tell Teri's story of depression and raising children and how she got through it. But, should she have had to go through that in the first place? I truly don't believe in the suffering olympics where there is an award for having 8 children vs. Only 2 or none. It pisses me off to see someone's mental health so disregarded. 

 

[Jana814]

I don’t think Steve cared about Teri’s mental health. All he cared about was having more children. I know someone who had severe PPD after her son she didn’t want to risk having it again so she didn’t have another child unlike Steve her husband cared about her mental health & was OK with only having 1 child. 

[Ivycoveredtower]

their  blog post today is the most boring yet. a picture of the babies and a bible the verse the lord laid on their hearts to share. 

[Queen Of Hearts]

On 3/24/2018 at 8:18 PM, anjulibai said:

I just noticed that Teri sat out the three-legged race to stay with the babies. Just like when her own kids were little and she'd get herself out of hide and seek first so she could sit on the couch. 

I get needing breaks, but it's not like she's taking care of these kids regularly. Do the three-legged race, Teri!

In defense of Teri, with her bad back doing a three legged race might be difficult or painful for her.  

[IReallyAmHopewell]

17 hours ago, anjulibai said:

would appreciate it if they told us a bit about their "real" lives. For example, with so many adults living under one roof, there are bound to be disagreements.  How do they deal?

The Institute in  Basic Life Principle was Gothard's way of teaching parents to AVOID conflict.

[freethemall]

Doesn't look like particularly great weather for a picnic, which tells me that they were adamant about scheduling that date and keeping it rather than saying "meh, let's push this up a few weeks when it might be warmer and nicer." But as we know, Terri idolizes her schedule. Like others have said, they live so close to each other there's no reason not to have a monthly picnic rather than an annual one. Compare to my own mother-in-law who plans an annual grandkids weekend with her 3 grandchildren being 1 hr drive, 9 hr driver/1.5 hr plane ride, and 24 hr drive/5 hr plane ride away. In that case, it makes a lot more sense to have to plan an annual event (she makes custom t-shirts and gifts for them!).

[FloraDoraDolly]

8 hours ago, Eternalbluepearl said:

EIGHT kids is a ton for anyone to manage, in my opinion. But for someone who doesn't seem to like kids all that much and had depression? I just can't imagine it. I am on the fence about whether Baby Pearl will have a sibling someday. Two feels like the most I could handle financially and sanity-wise. Why do fundies take on so much? I know the Maxwells like to tell Teri's story of depression and raising children and how she got through it. But, should she have had to go through that in the first place? I truly don't believe in the suffering olympics where there is an award for having 8 children vs. Only 2 or none. It pisses me off to see someone's mental health so disregarded. 

 

In addition to having five more kids while Teri was struggling with depression and raising the older three, she was also burdened with homeschooling the whole lot of them. Teri's burden would have been a whole lot lighter if the kids had been in school all day, although she still may have been overwhelmed with getting them there on time, making sure they had lunch/money, keeping up with homework, etc.

[nomoxian]

On 3/25/2018 at 3:16 AM, FloraDoraDolly said:

if all the grandkids are present, there are so many of them now that it may be necessary to plan what to bring, how much to bring, etc.

Does it really take that much planning though? Bring a ball (I know the Maxhells are anti-baseball but are they anti all-ball?) and play catch or soccer. Go to the dollar store and buy one frisbee for each kid, and you got yourself a game of golf. For food, grab a couple bags of cookies and candy. If there ends up being extra, they could put it in the cupboard in a tupperwear container. If they insist on only healthy snacks, grab a bag of apples and a bunch of bananas. Simple.

[grammyj]

Re Teri having eight kids altogether. She had agency. Nobody could have forced her to have more kids if she didn't agree with it.  I am sorry for her for the years of depression she has endured, but no  sympathy for having all those extra kids if she didn't want to.  Nope. She did it to herself. What would have happened if she had flatly told Steve no has been speculated on here.  But who knows.

And I agree, Teri doesn't seem overly fond of little kids.She has talked about when her kids were small of "being in the trenches." Not a pleasant metaphor.   I 'very often thought TerI would have made an excellent nun in a fairly rigorous order.

Just to add, having a large family, homeschooling them all for thirty years plus dealing with depression WITHOUT  appropriate medication provides much fodder for books, conferences, and role modelling for the followers. $$$$ in other words. Has it been a a wot h while tradeoff

[Lgirlrocks]

Does anyone else think that Teri mad an idol out of scheduling? While I understand the benefit of scheduling school days but they have taken it to a whole new level.

[Ivycoveredtower]

16 minutes ago, Lgirlrocks said:

Does anyone else think that Teri mad an idol out of scheduling? While I understand the benefit of scheduling school days but they have taken it to a whole new level.

it's probably the only thing she ever really had control over after steve decided they needed eleventy children and she's never letting that one piece of control go. 

[Captain Obvious]

20 hours ago, Jana814 said:

I don’t think Steve cared about Teri’s mental health. All he cared about was having more children. I know someone who had severe PPD after her son she didn’t want to risk having it again so she didn’t have another child unlike Steve her husband cared about her mental health & was OK with only having 1 child. 

No fundies care about mental health. The workings of the mind, a person's mood, their internal world: they are the realm of God, so the solution must be loving Jebus more. And what better way to love Jebus more than a vasectomy reversal and more arrows!

They are barely distinguishable from Scientologists in that regard.

17 hours ago, IReallyAmHopewell said:

The Institute in  Basic Life Principle was Gothard's way of teaching parents to AVOID conflict.

Not only conflict but also self-actualisation. There are no such things as individual wants, desires or personalities in fundieland. Everything is pushed down behind the "character" mask they all wear.

In that regard, they're nothing like Scientologists. 

[IReallyAmHopewell]

14 hours ago, grammyj said:

Re Teri having eight kids altogether. She had agency. Nobody could have forced her to have more kids if she didn't agree with it

Unfortunately saying "no" isn't an option. I don't imagine "marital rape" exists in their world any more than real therapy or anti-depressants.

[bluelady]

My youngest is 6 months next week and I've been struggling with ppd. In order to alleviate some stress for me, my partner suggested putting our other son in daycare two days a week. He'd also supportive of my use of antidepressants and isn't hounding me to have another. I can't imagine feeling like this with seven other kids and bring expected to home school. No thanks. 

[IReallyAmHopewell]

25 minutes ago, bluelady said:

My youngest is 6 months next week and I've been struggling with ppd. In order to alleviate some stress for me, my partner suggested putting our other son in daycare two days a week. He'd also supportive of my use of antidepressants and isn't hounding me to have another. I can't imagine feeling like this with seven other kids and bring expected to home school. No thanks. 

It's curious about this group that often it IS the woman who initiates the idea. Then they pay the price. I can't imagine how many women are really just "hanging by a thread'. We see the well-off families. There are families living this life in old trailers and tiny houses [think the hold Bates house] and no money eating what they grow or can barely afford. Imagine their lives. No end in sight for childbearing. No modern medicine unless there's a life/death emergency. Always a real risk of dying in childbirth. All to live debt free and raise an Army for God. Its been said that pre-tv there were Duggar children who never saw the inside of a store. That sort of isolation is seen as good. Imagine.

[Jana814]

48 minutes ago, IReallyAmHopewell said:

Its been said that pre-tv there were Duggar children who never saw the inside of a store. That sort of isolation is seen as good. Imagine.

Really I don't remember hearing that but it wouldn't surprise me if it was true. 

[fellowunfundie]

2 hours ago, IReallyAmHopewell said:

Unfortunately saying "no" isn't an option. I don't imagine "marital rape" exists in their world any more than real therapy or anti-depressants.

Not to mention birth control is wrong, in their opinion, so preventing pregnancy (while not impossible) would be very difficult, especially given the fact that women are not allowed to say “no” to their husbands. (There was an article making its way around fb last year on why Christian marriages don’t need consent. It’s easily found though a google search. This idea is alive and very well in mainstream evangelicalism, even.)

[Ivycoveredtower]

2 hours ago, IReallyAmHopewell said:

Unfortunately saying "no" isn't an option. I don't imagine "marital rape" exists in their world any more than real therapy or anti-depressants.

I think the fact is that they weren't complete fundyland at this point. Steve had had a vasectomy and Terri's own parents seem like the type  that wouldn't turn their back on her. Terri wasn't say an Anna Duggar who was raised in full Fundyland kool aid drinking since birth. she's just a woman that chose to stick by a crazy man. 

[IReallyAmHopewell]

42 minutes ago, Ivycoveredtower said:

just a woman that chose to stick by a crazy man. 

Honestly, we don't know that. She may have initiated the contact that led to this life. I agree, she's had many more choices earlier in life than Anna. But leaving and having to go to work with small children AND depression can be nearly impossible.  Steve could have used her mental health against her in a divorce. I think she may have seen no choices. Many women have been in that boat. I think it is also important to remember that she was a military wife at a time when they didn't necessarily get to have a job, let alone a career. I'll give her a little on this. Not defending their beliefs, but I'm close to her age so feel a little for her.

1 hour ago, Jana814 said:

Really I don't remember hearing that but it wouldn't surprise me if it was true. 

Back when the first special aired supposedly Michelle would take Jana and go visit friends while Jana sat in the bus or van or car with the napping toddlers in their car seats. Jana and another girl would be left with the little kids and the shopping crew would go to help with Aldis. On tv they did this with EVERY kid--a nightmare I'm sure. This was the era the Josh scandal was set in.

[fellowunfundie]

1 hour ago, Ivycoveredtower said:

I think the fact is that they weren't complete fundyland at this point. Steve had had a vasectomy and Terri's own parents seem like the type  that wouldn't turn their back on her. Terri wasn't say an Anna Duggar who was raised in full Fundyland kool aid drinking since birth. she's just a woman that chose to stick by a crazy man. 

But not acknowledging marital rape is not necessarily a fundyland problem. There’s a lot of seepage into other “strains” of religious contexts, and even though they weren’t full fundy then, they were religious, and specifically Christian, and specificially American Christians in a conservative part of the country. Fundamentalism creates extremes, but these icky ideas crop up loooots of places, even when this particular fundy koolaid is nowhere in sight. 

[grammyj]

The most ironic thing that I seTeri's life is that in addition to producing many offspring and homeschooling them all, she has written a number of books, maintained a blog, done the drudge work of caring for the children (like for example) when they were staying in hotels early on in their conference days. IIRC, in one of the early blogs Teri mentioned how Steve wanted her to have the kids all ready to leave their hotel room at a certain time for breakfast,  and what a challenge it was for her.  Didn't read like he was helping with the childcare either. Conference preparation aside, they were his kids too.

I guess what I'm getting at is that Teri--whom I find truly fascinating to read about--exemplifies another big reason why this type of fundamentalism is so dangerous to our society.  Women get so sucked into the cult that the idea of "me too" wouldn't resonate with them.  I feel angry for all the women who have been raised or have been  sucked into this belief system.    I'm of Teri's generation.  I'very seen the progress we'very made.   For many  women like Teri,  put a full burqa on them and they aren't much different from our sad  sisters in places like Saudi Arabia.  These hard core fundie women set us all  back so far.

OK.  Rant over. Just have to put it out there.

[Sister Mozz]

4 hours ago, Jana814 said:

Really I don't remember hearing that but it wouldn't surprise me if it was true. 

I grew up with a ton of siblings spaced close together, and we lived way out in the country. During my teenage years it was a big deal if we got to go on the monthly WalMart trip. That was basically the only time we left our small farm, unless it was to visit another fundie family or fundie-friendly neighbor. No church, no events, no extended family closer who lived nearby, and maybe only going to WalMart once a month. I look back and I don't know how I survived, but it seemed perfectly normal at the time.