Lori Alexander 41: The Uninformed Wife

[louisa05]

4 minutes ago, Sarah92 said:

As one of those young ladies that this is being directed at my apartment is a bit messy. But I'll be cleaning it today. Right now I'm sitting in a coffee shop embroidering all lady like while my car is getting fixed. I know how to clean. Most of my friends in my age range know how to clean. *gasps* Lori I know you probably don't get to know many young ladies but I'd say a good percentage of us know how to clean, it's not actually that hard. What I don't know I Pinterest. For goodness sakes it quite literally not rocket science. Also guys need to learn how to clean, no guarantee that they'll get married and have a second mother, I mean wife. 

And seriously, a college degree does not somehow make you unable to pick us a dust rag. Since going off to college, I've actually learned how to cook better. But really I'm probably just a deceived feminist. 

I have never understood the fundie notion that learning how to do basic household tasks is so difficult that a girl's life has to be devoted to it. It really isn't that hard to do basic cleaning. Vacuuming a house is not a skill that most competent adults can't master on their own on the first try. Cleaning a bathroom is easy to figure out. Dusting furniture is sort of a self-explanatory skill. I could keep going. None of it is rocket science. 

As for cooking, I was never taught to cook. I was just in the kitchen growing up and my mother just gradually gave me more and more tasks to help with while she cooked. And I learned. Kids can go to school and come home and learn to cook and still do other non-housekeeping cooking things in their life. (And I intentionally used "kids" not "girls" as boys need to learn, too, lest they grow up to be my husband and have no idea how to do anything more complicated than frying an egg and can't do that without scratching up the pans!). 

[SueEllenMishke]

7 minutes ago, Sarah92 said:

As one of those young ladies that this is being directed at my apartment is a bit messy. But I'll be cleaning it today. Right now I'm sitting in a coffee shop embroidering all lady like while my car is getting fixed. I know how to clean. Most of my friends in my age range know how to clean. *gasps* Lori I know you probably don't get to know many young ladies but I'd say a good percentage of us know how to clean, it's not actually that hard. What I don't know I Pinterest. For goodness sakes it quite literally not rocket science. Also guys need to learn how to clean, no guarantee that they'll get married and have a second mother, I mean wife. 

And seriously, a college degree does not somehow make you unable to pick us a dust rag. Since going off to college, I've actually learned how to cook better. But really I'm probably just a deceived feminist. 

This is me in a nutshell! I had a SAHM growing up, but guess what...she never taught me to cook and the only cleaning my sis and I did was when she would make up a bucket of Murphy's Oil Soap and have us wipe down our bedroom furniture.

Honestly, I would have loved to cook more and help out more, but mom was a "my way or the highway" type person and she would lose it if we made a mess cooking or did anything different than how she would do it. When I moved into my own place after college, the only thing I knew how to cook was grilled cheese, pasta and baked chicken in the oven and that was more from me just figuring it out. But, 15 years later, I can cook just about any recipe you throw at me, I make my own bread and canned goods and 90% of what my family eats is from scratch. My husband and I work full time and we have somehow found a way to cook and clean and raise our kids. 

Its almost as if "keeping a home" has more to do with your attitude than with your genitals  

[AuntKrazy]

1 hour ago, delphinium65 said:

Wouldn't surprise me, something like:  'Lori Alexander 200, Still Uninformed, Uneducated, and Still Going On and Ooooooon' 

Or "Lori Alexander 200:  200th verse same as the first (as well as every verse in between)"

[quiversR4hunting]

13 minutes ago, louisa05 said:

(And I intentionally used "kids" not "girls" as boys need to learn, too, lest they grow up to be my husband and have no idea how to do anything more complicated than frying an egg and can't do that without scratching up the pans!). 

My mom always said she wasn't going to "raise a handicap child" handicap meaning one that doesn't know how to take care of themselves on their own (cook, clean, laundry, budget, etc) she saw way too many kids that didn't know how to do it (she taught HS business classes). She also watched as her MIL allowed the "baby boy" of the family (my uncle) come home from college and grandma would do all his laundry, etc. My mom was like, nope, nope, not a chance! (My grandma was a HS counselor at the same HS where my parents taught.) So with that attitude, my brother, sister and I all learned how to do all the household chores (including outside maintenance) and she made my dad show us how to change the oil, a tire, etc. (My dad was a math teacher and is still a farmer and can repair anything.)

@SueEllenMishke - I had friends growing up with SAHM and those moms were the worst when preparing their children for living on their own. Most of them never let the kids cook (because of the mess), cleaned everything while kids were at school, etc. Some of these kids (now adults) grew up thinking it was a magic table like this video:

 

[louisa05]

@quiversR4hunting I suspect that a lot of SAHMs, especially the fundie ones, get wrapped up in the cooking and cleaning being their job and what proves their worth, so they don't make the kids help at all. If someone else was doing some of it, they wouldn't be fulfilling their calling, after all. Obviously, there is a whole other subset that are like the Duggars, where the kids become nannies and domestic servants because the family grows beyond the capability of one person handling everything, too. 

My mother-in-law didn't teach either of her kids how to do anything. She is a sweet lady, but if I'm being honest, she wasn't smart enough to figure out that they needed to learn. SiL was too lazy and self-centered to do anything anyway and the notion of teaching either kid or making them help her just never crossed her mind. SiL thinks she taught herself, but her cooking is...well, you don't want to eat it. Trust me. As for housekeeping, she does everything in as difficult a way as possible because she doesn't really know how to do it. Husband taught himself to clean (and does the majority of the cleaning at our house because he is picky about how it's done), but lived on fast food and frozen food before I came along and started cooking in his kitchen. He does know how to fix stuff, take care of cars, take care of the lawn and all of that stuff because he followed his dad around as a child and his dad taught him how. But FiL is not the dim bulb that MiL is. Bless her, she is not a smart person at all. 

[EowynW]

My mom wouldn't teach my brother any of that. We had to clean his room, do his laundry, etc etc because "boys just aren't wired for that and they need us to help them." 

 

Bull. Shit. 

 

 

[SueEllenMishke]

@quiversR4hunting I totally agree. I was honestly (sadly) amazed in college at my friends who knew how to cook, who would make their own dinner at home because mom was busy, etc. It was just utterly foreign to me. And we weren't fundie at all, just a mom with very controlling tendencies and a belief that anything different than how she did things was wrong. I think one of the reasons I follow Lori is because of the similarities with her and my mom, just less focus on religion in my house. But the weight shaming? The idea that a salad should be plenty of food and how are you so hungry? That's my mom to a T. 

[louisa05]

5 minutes ago, EowynW said:

My mom wouldn't teach my brother any of that. We had to clean his room, do his laundry, etc etc because "boys just aren't wired for that and they need us to help them." 

 

Bull. Shit. 

My nephew's mother didn't teach him to do anything either. Part patriarchy, part laziness and part her considering him a baby. 

He moved in with my brother for his senior year of high school and a week after he arrived, my brother called me to rant that he had a "17 year old toddler" living in his house. Kid didn't know how to wash dishes, microwave food, fold laundry...nothing. Not even the most basic skills. 

We had tried to teach him stuff when we had him in the summers over the years, but none of it really stuck. 

[Loveday]

1 hour ago, Carol said:

I am struck by how much effort Lori puts into keeping women inside their homes.  

Do not leave except to buy groceries...Do not go outside...Keep you doors locked...Draw your drapes...Pray all the time that you aren't busy cleaning...The only joy comes from a clean home...Don't let your kids outside...Don't have fun with your kids or play with them...Don't talk to them about feelings or emotions...Make sure they mind at all times...Second requests require beatings.  

She hates women.  She hates Ken.  She hates life.  She is mentally and emotionally unstable.  She is cruel.  

And she's got all these truly ignorant followers...

Best summation of Lori Alexander and her 'teachings' I've seen in a long time. 

[Carol]

When I was growing we had a full time housekeeper.  I rarely had to clean/dust anything, make my bed...blah, blah, blah.  When I went out on my own no one had to teach me how to keep a clean house.  I absorbed it through observation and using my brain to figure things out.  I never called my mother and asked her how to wash dishes, dust, clean the bathroom, mop/vacuum the floor and everything else I do to keep my home clean.  While I don't do it with a "happy spirit" as Lori insists Jesus calls me to do, it gets done.  This crazy obsession Lori has with housekeeping serves no other purpose than to keep women down where she thinks they belong.  

Ain't no one gonna be happy if Lori ain't happy.

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

Mr. Dress didn't learn to cook or clean at home. mostly because my MIL doesn't really cook. Well she did, but not enough to actually feed anyone.  She was very, very controlling about food and weight. There was very little food in the house because of that and Mr. Dress wasn't allowed near any food except at meal times. I know I've mentioned that Mr Dress went to college being 6 ft, 120 lbs, gained the freshman 15 Fall semester, and MIL put him on a crash diet over Christmas break because he had gotten "fat." 

They also had a housekeeper who did all the cleaning and laundry even though my MIL was a SAHM (rich people ya know). My FL was handy with tools and fixing cars, but refused to teach Mr. Dress because no one except my FIL was allowed to touch the tools. Mr. Dress learned to drive in HS but was never allowed to touch/ drive the family cars.

TL;DR   So everything he knows about cleaning and handyman stuff he learned from me, who learned from my parents.  Plus, while he is not a naturally neat person, Mr. Dress likes a neat organized house -- and --because he's a really nice guy he know 2 people live here, so 2 people need to clean.  He still can't cook (although he does a great steak in a cast iron frying pan), but he a whiz at cleaning the kitchen. 

[Frog99]

I too wondered what is so difficult about household chores. I work and still manage to get things done, as do all other adults I know. I don’t understand what needs to be taught or what these women think they missed out on. Of course, if you live like Lori mandates, spending all of your days cleaning, cooking, and homeschooling, with little to no outlets, daily life probably becomes isolating and like drudgery. We are meant to live in community with one another, and I don’t see why we must isolate ourselves. And I don’t get the we vs them stuff. I have Mom friends who stay home and I have Mom friends who work. No judgement on either side. 

Lori calls herself transformed- it’s not a transformation. She just directs it outward instead of towards Ken and their kids. He’s far from innocent but her latest posts really have demonstrated what life must have been like in the Alexander household. It’s a wonder their kids are as functioning as they are- probably because of the nanny influence and to a lesser degree, Ken (according to him he at least fed them). Lori has so much rage it’s scary. 

[feministxtian]

Our place right now is pretty cluttered. We have almost no storage here so everything is stashed in a bedroom. Our master bedroom is fairly uncluttered but my office is a disaster because there's not enough room for my stuff either. Living room and kitchen stay fairly clean and uncluttered. 

Housework...we do it when we feel like it. Its just the two of us and in this place we don't entertain. My husband does the lion's share since my accident because I just can't do it, physically. I may be picking up a second job, teaching again...which will be nice since my current job has become part-time. 

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

33 minutes ago, Frog99 said:

Lori has so much rage it’s scary. 

 

Yes x1000

[refugee]

1 hour ago, Frog99 said:

 

I too wondered what is so difficult about household chores.

 

I wonder... I think keeping house is a no-brainer for some people, and they look at others who struggle and think “What’s so hard about that?” I am one of those Lori would call lazy and a slob. I live cluttered (contemplating dealing with it is immediately overwhelming and throwing things away provokes intense anxiety). Kids and homeschooling made it worse. I’ve heard Lori’s ilk call ADD a lame excuse, but the disorganized aspects are very real. I can clean all day and end up with my house looking worse than when I started.

I wonder how many of her fan girls are overwhelmed with the basics of living and looking for real solutions and practical ways to cope? I wonder how many other fan girls are seriously lacking in some aspect (like starving their kids physically by feeding them mainly salad, and starving them emotionally and intellectually in various ways) but keep a relatively spotless home and pride themselves on it and make fun of less organized SAHMs?

(@Frog99, you know I’m not lumping you in with the “make fun of” people I just mentioned, right? I just had a twinge of anxiety and felt the need to edit and clarify. This topic makes me twitchy.)

Honestly, the most helpful resource I’ve found lately has been “Unfuck Your Habitat” (aka UFYH). I think I first heard mention of it here on FJ. I started working with the app, connected with the posts on Tumblr, borrowed the ebook from the library and ended up buying the book and am slowly making my way through it.

It has been a great source of encouragement in dealing with having a livable space and dealing with ADD, chronic pain, and low energy. Some good helpful coping advice, too.

[lilwriter85]

I have a friend whose mom was a SAHM and my friend didn't learn to do a lot of things growing up. My friend and her siblings had to keep their rooms neat with no clothes or trash on the floor and that was it. Her mom did all of their laundry and other cleaning chores in the house. My friend mentioned that she had to learn to do laundry as a college freshman from classmates. She admits that she kept her side of the dorm messy and it wasn't until she moved into an apartment at age 20 that she learned how to really clean a house.

My parents attend a small Catholic parish and there is a family in that parish with 7 kids. The mother in that family prides herself being a SAHM, but my parents and others have said that there is something off with her.  One of my parents' friends from that parish has decided to give away some of her kids' old clothes to mom of 7 kids. She went to the house and said it was a total mess with dirty clothes thrown all over the living and the kitchen was cluttered with dirty dishes and floor looked gross. Other people in the parish and friends of the kids have said similar things for years.

 

Being a SAHM doesn't automatically mean that your house is going to be super clean or that your kids will learn cleaning skills. Not all SAHMs are the same and I laugh how Lori's fangirls often act as if all SAHMs are very clean and teach their kids various life skills. 

[Carol]

God, grant me the serenity
To accept a lived-in house over an immaculate one 
The courage to know my children are more important than daily vacuuming  
And the wisdom to know Lori Alexander is a hateful lunatic seeking a 2nd viral post.

 
 

[dairyfreelife]

4 hours ago, Carol said:

I am struck by how much effort Lori puts into keeping women inside their homes.  

Do not leave except to buy groceries...Do not go outside...Keep you doors locked...Draw your drapes...Pray all the time that you aren't busy cleaning...The only joy comes from a clean home...Don't let your kids outside...Don't have fun with your kids or play with them...Don't talk to them about feelings or emotions...Make sure they mind at all times...Second requests require beatings.  

She hates women.  She hates Ken.  She hates life.  She is mentally and emotionally unstable.  She is cruel.  

And she's got all these truly ignorant followers...

You forgot one thing. If she tells women to do it, you can almost guarantee she doesn't do it herself. If she tells women not to do it, you can almost guarantee she or her family do it. She is seriously one of the most hypocritical people I've come across. You do as Lori says, not as Lori and her family do. 

[Liza]

                                                          

[Lgirlrocks]

4 hours ago, EowynW said:

My mom wouldn't teach my brother any of that. We had to clean his room, do his laundry, etc etc because "boys just aren't wired for that and they need us to help them." 

 

Bull. Shit. 

 

 

My older brother started doing his own laundry at 11. I wanted to do my own to so I started a few years after him. There’s almost a four year age difference between us. My dad, even though he worked two jobs, still helped with the laundry. He wasn’t very good at figuring out whose laundry was who’s so I always helped. Some people are better at some things than others. 

[refugee]

I think one of Lori’s problems is she wouldn’t know evil if it walked up and bit her on the butt. 

Just look at all the evil she spews, and allows others to spew, on her FB.

[Lgirlrocks]

I want to go back to Lori and her being okay with spanking. I grew up in a house where if you got in trouble you were usually spanked. I was told the whole purpose of spanking is so you remember the pain and you don’t do whatever it is you did to get in trouble again. I watched it fail over and over again with my older brother. He was deterred by being spanked or the thought of it. 

Lori says she spanked her kids when they were to young to remember. Why? Why spank a kid who won’t remember? Why not teach them in a way that helps them to learn? 

I want to point out I don’t think children should  e spank. There are other ways to help them learn right from wrong. 

5 minutes ago, refugee said:

I think one of Lori’s problems is she wouldn’t know evil if it walked up and bit her on the butt. 

Just look at all the evil she spews, and allows others to spew, on her FB.

They think they are correct in what they are teaching. They want to feel like their lives are better than others. 

[Frog99]

2 hours ago, refugee said:

I wonder... I think keeping house is a no-brainer for some people, and they look at others who struggle and think “What’s so hard about that?” I am one of those Lori would call lazy and a slob. I live cluttered (contemplating dealing with it is immediately overwhelming and throwing things away provokes intense anxiety). Kids and homeschooling made it worse. I’ve heard Lori’s ilk call ADD a lame excuse, but the disorganized aspects are very real. I can clean all day and end up with my house looking worse than when I started.

I wonder how many of her fan girls are overwhelmed with the basics of living and looking for real solutions and practical ways to cope? I wonder how many other fan girls are seriously lacking in some aspect (like starving their kids physically by feeding them mainly salad, and starving them emotionally and intellectually in various ways) but keep a relatively spotless home and pride themselves on it and make fun of less organized SAHMs?

(@Frog99, you know I’m not lumping you in with the “make fun of” people I just mentioned, right? I just had a twinge of anxiety and felt the need to edit and clarify. This topic makes me twitchy.)

Honestly, the most helpful resource I’ve found lately has been “Unfuck Your Habitat” (aka UFYH). I think I first heard mention of it here on FJ. I started working with the app, connected with the posts on Tumblr, borrowed the ebook from the library and ended up buying the book and am slowly making my way through it.

It has been a great source of encouragement in dealing with having a livable space and dealing with ADD, chronic pain, and low energy. Some good helpful coping advice, too.

Don’t be anxious. You made some very legitimate points and I certainly did not mean to minimize anyone’s challenge. I think what aggravates me about Lori and her ilk is the way she pigeonholes women and assumes that we are out in the world because we ignore God’s will or don’t know any better or some such nonsense. I will never derive joy from cleaning my house or toilet but it gets done. Not to mention, her posts don’t teach any skills or ways to manage, yet those darn leghumpers instantly chime in with how they needed to hear those words and how much she has taught them. I am always interested in new approaches to completing tasks (checking out that book you referenced)- but there’s nothing in her writing. Sort of like those extreme coupon shows where people spend nothing and end up with a cart full of toothpaste and soap. 

I’m feeling extra stabby tonight. We have outgrown or home- even though it’s close to 1500 square feet but with zero storage space. It was built in 1940- lots of character, but very small, very defined rooms. I am at my wits end and want to sell. DH has some sort of emotional attachment to the house and while he knows that’s what we need to do, he won’t commit. We bought this house because he was a volunteer firefighter and needed to be within certain response time of the firehouse. Now he isn’t. I settled to make him happy and now I’m over it.

[Briefly]

Mr. Briefly's dad abandoned the family when my husband was about 9. As a result, even though he was still a child, as the oldest kid he suddenly found himself "the man of the family" because he was the oldest. It was not right but I think it was probably an accepted idea at the time. Anyway, his mom had to go out and get a job so they could eat and have housing. It was hard on them, but when I met him he already knew how to cook, clean and do laundry.

Our daughter knows how to do quite a bit, I taught her to cook starting from a very young age. When she was in high school, she was just about the only one in her group of friends who did know how. I would have taught a boy, too, if we'd had one. We also usually do needed things around the house ourselves instead of hiring someone (hubs is an Engineer and it seems to be common among them). She always helped. She learned how to put up a fence, paint a house, do basic plumbing repairs, and hubs made sure she learned basic car maintenance. She may never have to install a chain link or wooden fence but she does know how! I never understood why people don't teach their children basic life skills!  It might keep them alive.

[cindyluvs24]

By the time I was 12, my mother had saved enough for a down payment (and found a bank to give a mortgage to a single woman) and bought a 2 bedroom, 1 bath house.  It had a small stackable washer/dryer unit. No more walking across the courtyard and down moldy steps into a damp laundry room at our old apartment complex!  No quarters needed for the washer, no dimes needed for the dryer (except in the summer, then clothes were hung up in the apartment to save money.)  I fell in love with doing the laundry.  How simple just to walk to the kitchen and there it was!  Then there was the fabled Painting Of The Walls.  My mother was a teacher so we had to measure the walls, calculate square footage, then off the Rickel for paint and supplies.  Gutter cleaning, lawn care, caulking and grouting, scraping and painting the exterior shingles...., I have some fond memories of working on the house.  This is the same house I just renovated and rented out last year.  Lori will never understand.