Ask an Ex Fundie (VF style)

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

18 minutes ago, Leftitinmysnood said:

I still got dishes for my high school graduation gift.

As I've mentioned before, my parents' high school graduation gift to each of us 4 kids was a luggage set. They had no intention of having stay-at-home adult kids!  (They didnt just kick us out, either. They supported us through our early 20s, until we were ready and able to move out.)

[Leftitinmysnood]

3 hours ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

As I've mentioned before, my parents' high school graduation gift to each of us 4 kids was a luggage set. They had no intention of having stay-at-home adult kids!  (They didnt just kick us out, either. They supported us through our early 20s, until we were ready and able to move out.)

My grandparents gave me a luggage set for high school graduation. I think this represents how they felt about the group we were in. They also paid for my driving school (Lindvall didn't believe his daughter should learn to drive), part of my college tuition and books, and my first cross-county plane trip alone. 

[Letgo]

About this 200 year plan...Geoff Botkin has to be at least in his sixties, right? He isn't going to live another 200 years in order to make sure his plan is implemented. So what is the point? Sure, his children seem to be following him, but they COULD, at some point, have ideas of their own, especially after he dies. Or Geoff's grandchildren might want to go another way. Or great-grandchildren, etc.  The more children and grandchildren, the more difficult it will be to keep them all in the fold. Geoff has no control over things such as finances, the political climate, weather, wars. famine, culture, society, and people who aren't even born yet! There are so many things that can change and derail his plans. 

Only Geoff's sons are married. His two daughters are not. I wonder if that is because Geoff would lose control of them because they would have to follow their husbands and be removed from his next 200 years. The sons would follow their father and keep Geoff's vision going, but the female children wouldn't. Having them remained unmarried and in his home gives Geoff control and free labor. Much better for him to have Anna Sofia and Elizabeth with the family. 

A family 200 year plan just sounds so grandiose to me. I'm trying to imagine telling my own children about MY 200 year plan for them and their children. It's not working for me. I think they'd haul me off to a shrink.

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

54 minutes ago, Letgo said:

About this 200 year plan...Geoff Botkin has to be at least in his sixties, right? He isn't going to live another 200 years in order to make sure his plan is implemented. So what is the point?

I assume that it basically comes down to stroking Geoff's massive ego, like a lot of the crap we read about Biblical Patriarchy™️.  He can pat himself on the back and imagine the many generations of Botkins submitting to his 200 year plan.

[Palimpsest]

42 minutes ago, Letgo said:

About this 200 year plan...Geoff Botkin has to be at least in his sixties, right? He isn't going to live another 200 years in order to make sure his plan is implemented. So what is the point? Sure, his children seem to be following him, but they COULD, at some point, have ideas of their own, especially after he dies. Or Geoff's grandchildren might want to go another way. Or great-grandchildren, etc.  The more children and grandchildren, the more difficult it will be to keep them all in the fold. Geoff has no control over things such as finances, the political climate, weather, wars. famine, culture, society, and people who aren't even born yet! There are so many things that can change and derail his plans. 

How dare you question Botkin, you heathen, you!  You must be female and therefore you don't understand his genius.  Once the Patriarch has spoken and trained up his sons in Godliness they will never deviate from his ways and commands.  Even if they develop their own plans they will be the reflection of God the Daddy Botkin.  And, as God is good, Botkin shall live as long as Methuselah. 

The 200 year plan was an Excell spreadsheet.  It plotted major family accomplishments set out priorities and "life goals" going down several generations of unborn children.

I'm not sure how accurate Geoff's predictions were on the original.  He projected the sons' marriage dates, number of their children, and his own and their death dates.  It went down to his great-grandsons. (Perhaps great-great.)  He estimated 186,000 male descendants.  And they would have their own 200 year plans, all of them consistent with his ideas.

Note, he didn't bother to estimate female descendants.   Only male Botkins were relevant.

Such hubris and arrogance.  He's nuts.  But I wonder if he looks at it and thinks how stupid he was these days.  Or is he frantically revising it as people like Ben and Audri escape the gulag.

[MamaJunebug]

1 hour ago, Letgo said:

Only Geoff's sons are married. His two daughters are not. I wonder if that is because Geoff would lose control of them because they would have to follow their husbands and be removed from his next 200 years. The sons would follow their father and keep Geoff's vision going, but the female children wouldn't. Having them remained unmarried and in his home gives Geoff control and free labor. Much better for him to have Anna Sofia and Elizabeth with the family. 

This seems somewhat common amongst extremist families. The Botkins. The Steve Maxwells come to mind. The “AhTheLifers” before the one got married to the widower & his nine youngish kids. The Marcus Stevens eventually let go of the three oldest girls but I won’t be surprised if the youngest, Lydia (?) never quite finds her own headship. Marcus appears too preoccupied with his books and Cheryl’s known as a lie-energy type who still has two late-adolescence sons under roof. 

I know there are plenty extremist families where daughters have married. The creepy (MHO) Thomas Family finally let go of the second daughter and I think the Zeses (real estate tycoon) and even the Leiningers (stinkin’ rich) permitted one or more daughters to marry. But those three all seem to have some cash. For those without the means of hiring In-home care, keeping at least one grown woman as nurse makes sense. 

Baby-boomers who embraced extremist religion: proof that my generation had/has great potential for selfishness. 

[wallysmommy]

Doesn't the 200 year plan reek of divination (witchcraft)?  

[Flyinthesoup]

3 hours ago, Palimpsest said:

How dare you question Botkin, you heathen, you!  You must be female and therefore you don't understand his genius.  Once the Patriarch has spoken and trained up his sons in Godliness they will never deviate from his ways and commands.  Even if they develop their own plans they will be the reflection of God the Daddy Botkin.  And, as God is good, Botkin shall live as long as Methuselah. 

The 200 year plan was an Excell spreadsheet.  It plotted major family accomplishments set out priorities and "life goals" going down several generations of unborn children.

I'm not sure how accurate Geoff's predictions were on the original.  He projected the sons' marriage dates, number of their children, and his own and their death dates.  It went down to his great-grandsons. (Perhaps great-great.)  He estimated 186,000 male descendants.  And they would have their own 200 year plans, all of them consistent with his ideas.

Note, he didn't bother to estimate female descendants.   Only male Botkins were relevant.

Such hubris and arrogance.  He's nuts.  But I wonder if he looks at it and thinks how stupid he was these days.  Or is he frantically revising it as people like Ben and Audri escape the gulag.

Forgive my stupidity, but is this real? ? I thought you were making this up, but by the time I got to the end of reading this, I think you are saying this IS what he did, do I have that correct?  I'm just shaking my head at this, unbelievable!!!

[Palimpsest]

25 minutes ago, Flyinthesoup said:

Forgive my stupidity, but is this real? ? I thought you were making this up, but by the time I got to the end of reading this, I think you are saying this IS what he did, do I have that correct?  I'm just shaking my head at this, unbelievable!!!

It is real.  Sorry.

[Flyinthesoup]

37 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

It is real.  Sorry.

Oh my!  The craziness of it all.  I was actually laughing when I was initially reading your words, until I got a clue you were speaking truth.....I do not even know how to respond.....???

[starfish]

Any chance you know the Moneysaving Mom, Crystal Paine?  She was my gateway fundie with her Biblical Womanhood blog back in the day. It was like a train wreck and I could not look away. 

[Maxwell]

On 7/28/2019 at 8:09 PM, Soulhuntress said:

Rushdoony.  Fuck that guy with a rusty barbed wire encased pineapple shoved sideways up his ass.  

 

“I shall never forget how I was roused one night by the groans of a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare. Since I had always been especially sorry for people who suffered from fearful dreams or deliria, I wanted to wake the poor man. Suddenly I drew back the hand which was ready to shake him, frightened at the thing I was about to do. At that moment I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to recall him.”

― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

[Monstrous Black Sheep]

I believe it was Adam McManus (favorite VF radio personality) who cornered my 9(?) year old brother at the 200 Year Plan conference and boomed down at him "Well, son, do you have a 200 Year Plan?"

The poor kid kind of stared up at him wordless.

[SrMaryEloquentia]

12 minutes ago, Monstrous Black Sheep said:

I believe it was Adam McManus (favorite VF radio personality) who cornered my 9(?) year old brother at the 200 Year Plan conference and boomed down at him "Well, son, do you have a 200 Year Plan?"

The poor kid kind of stared up at him wordless.

I was quite torn, how to react to this - ?, because of the absurdity of the scene?

simple upvote to thank you for posting about your experience? 

Finally went with the heart, because I can’t help but wonder how this felt for your brother.

I don’t want to  intrude on his privacy, so please only answer, if you feel free to post: What became of your brother? Is he still in fundy circles? How did that work out for him, in terms of education, chosing a profession, or having a family?

[Monstrous Black Sheep]

17 minutes ago, SrMaryEloquentia said:

I was quite torn, how to react to this - ?, because of the absurdity of the scene?

simple upvote to thank you for posting about your experience?  

Finally went with the heart, because I can’t help but wonder how this felt for your brother. 

I don’t want to  intrude on his privacy, so please only answer, if you feel free to post: What became of your brother? Is he still in fundy circles? How did that work out for him, in terms of education, chosing a profession, or having a family? 

Haha, the poor kid was mostly confused.
Most of my siblings are still minors in fundyville, but my family is a good one even if they buy into toxic ideologies. I'm hoping that as the kids get older they'll start to question why I left, etc. So far I'm the only one to have left.

[JermajestyDuggar]

9 hours ago, Monstrous Black Sheep said:

Haha, the poor kid was mostly confused.
Most of my siblings are still minors in fundyville, but my family is a good one even if they buy into toxic ideologies. I'm hoping that as the kids get older they'll start to question why I left, etc. So far I'm the only one to have left.

I think that if you live your life happily the way you want, you’ll be a great role model for them to later emulate. 

[FundieGhostWriter]

Idle curiosity here - I wonder if those subjected to a Dougish upbringing see evidence of outstanding handwriting among VF kids? Doug tried to sell me on his 'Vision'(TM) back when he was starting out. The only thing that raised a somewhat appreciative eyebrow from me was his aim to teach 'Revolutionary era'(TM) penmanship. The rest of his schtick sent both my eyebrows into overdrive. Did antiquarian calligraphy indeed become a 'thing'?

[Hane]

@FundieGhostWriter, that I don’t know, but I remember seeing George Washington’s signature when I was a kid learning cursive and being appalled at his awful handwriting!

[nickelodeon]

18th century handwriting is legitimately SUPER PRETTY. Jane Austen and Frances Burney’s letters are both gorgeously tidy and even.

[VVV]

14 minutes ago, nickelodeon said:

18th century handwriting is legitimately SUPER PRETTY. Jane Austen and Frances Burney’s letters are both gorgeously tidy and even.

Not just 18th century. My grandfather's writing was beautiful copperplate. He was born in 1893 and educated for the most part in one- or two-room country schools.

Edited August 12, 2019 by VVV

[Sobeknofret]

4 hours ago, VVV said:

Not just 18th century. My grandfather's writing was beautiful copperplate. He was born in 1893 and educated for the most part in one- or two-room country schools.

My grandfather was born in 1910, dropped out of school in 5th grade to help support his family, and he had positively the most gorgeous handwriting I've ever seen. They must have really hammered handwriting when he was a boy.

[JermajestyDuggar]

7 minutes ago, Sobeknofret said:

My grandfather was born in 1910, dropped out of school in 5th grade to help support his family, and he had positively the most gorgeous handwriting I've ever seen. They must have really hammered handwriting when he was a boy.

My great grandfather was born in 1911 and his wife was born in 1913. I swear their handwriting looked so similar! I always assumed their teacher was a real stickler for doing it exactly right. 

[Monstrous Black Sheep]

22 hours ago, FundieGhostWriter said:

Idle curiosity here - I wonder if those subjected to a Dougish upbringing see evidence of outstanding handwriting among VF kids? Doug tried to sell me on his 'Vision'(TM) back when he was starting out. The only thing that raised a somewhat appreciative eyebrow from me was his aim to teach 'Revolutionary era'(TM) penmanship. The rest of his schtick sent both my eyebrows into overdrive. Did antiquarian calligraphy indeed become a 'thing'?

It was definitely seen as a skill to be pursued. I have good handwriting, but that's thanks to my mom, not vision forum. I didn't have enough VF pen pals to be able to give you an estimate. I'd say it was common, but partially because VF liked to major in the minors.

and YES calligraphy was heavily pushed. I tried to get into it, but never figured it out. VF sold a calligraphy kit and supplies.

[raspberrymint]

I didn't get a graduation present, but I did get luggage for Christmas in my late teens.  My parents didn't expect me to move out, though.  The luggage was for family trips to the seminary school my uncle attended.  My uncle is young enough to be my brother.  He went on mission trips and invited my sister and cousin.  He didn't invite me.  The excuses were either that I had already been overseas (when I was 3) or that I was embarrassing, depending on which relative you asked and what mood they were in.

At age 7, I remember seeing 18th century handwriting and being impressed they could write at all.  I tried using a quill and ink and didn't write anything legible.  Calligraphy was something I was expected to be good at and wasn't, so I was made to spend hours drawing lines with a pencil and forcing myself to hold pencils correctly for some handwriting program.  The results were sent to the guy who made the program.  I never got past basically drawing tallymarks because my letters weren't clean enough.

I have some learning disabilities that impact my coordination.  This was the primary root of why I was an embarrassing child to have in strict homeschooling groups.  The main assumptions were that I was either smart and evil (lazy) or that I was hysterical and stupid, generally some combination.

[refugee]

The VF-embracing fundies we knew were dead serious about the 200-year plan. They were going to take back America (maybe the world) for christianity of the dominionist flavor by outbreeding everyone.

And if children fall away, it is only for a time, and they’ll come crawling back and tell the parents they were right all along. The prodigal son and “train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” were their magical incantations against children having opinions of their own.

Tim Bayly actually taught in a seminar that more christians have been made by being born into christian families and raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord than have been won by evangelism. He actually and literally said that. I wrote it down word for word because I was so floored. I asked our pastor about it later, and he hemmed and hawed and gaslighted it away. Height of irony: I looked up the phrase to make sure I was remembering right, and I found it in the verse that tells fathers not to exasperate their children.

We know a few families where older ones have walked away. Shunned, until they do something that sort of seems to affirm the parents’ ideology, like getting married (yippee!) or having a grandchild or deciding to join mom’s YL downline. I kid you not.

The ones who continue to live their own life, to dare to think their own thoughts, especially those who identify openly as LGBTQ+, are never spoken of. It’s like they’re dead, or worse, never existed.

Edited August 13, 2019 by refugee
Friggin autocorrect