Maxwell 32: Wearing Your Vest in 15 Minute Increments

[raspberrymint]

Well, if any of the kids enjoys magic stories, they'll deal with hiding it and being shamed and beaten when found out, likely in a cycle.  

[FloraDoraDolly]

The ban on magic/scary themes is not solely a Maxwell thing. When I was a kid, we had some fundie (i.e. they all went to Bob Jones when they grew up) cousins who came to town for a visit. Disney's "Pinocchio" happened to be playing at the local theatre, and Mom offered to take all the kids to see it, but her suggestion was met with weird stares and condescending sneers. These relatives were on Dad's side of the family, so she had no idea how weird they were.

I had another fundie cousin who wouldn't let her kids read/watch Harry Potter for years, but then changed her mind. I think it's because her particular branch of fundie-ism changed their views. (They needed to go more mainstream to attract more people to their megachurch/cult.)

[NancyDrewFan1989]

5 hours ago, browngrl said:

Good grief: no magic or scary stories allowed? I'd rarely read a book if these subjects were banned since I love horror/science fiction and fantasy. What could I have done to occupy "filler time" ? 

The only issue with this is the Maxwells aren't the only fundie families who nix the magic and scary stories. Becky Bontrager wrote that she doesn't let her kids watch or read Disney books. A former fundie Allan Parfitt who's family is friends with the Neely's, Staddon's, and Wilkes mentioned in a post that he was barred from reading the Chronicles of Narnia and The Bobbsey Twins. The Maxwell children probably fill their time with Sarah's books and approved reading on the Gothardian Library for Children. The rest of the family and the children probably read and pray all the time about what to next like cleaning out a freezer and how to use a pizza cutter properly.

[terranova]

Its not like they will read for pleasure or f*n. The Maxwell grandchildren will only read to entend their Biblical memory or for other Steve Reasons.

[NancyDrewFan1989]

@terranova Judging from NR Anna's posts about scripture memory Christopher's children seem right on track for Biblical memory. Out of all the Maxwell wives she seems the most fundiest. 

[Myfanwy]

The bible if full of magic. So how does that work? 

Ooops. No. My bad. Not magic.

Miracles.

Totally different. ?

[Lgirlrocks]

Chronicles of Narnia and LoTR are both Christian fiction. I couldn’t imagine not being able to read for fun. Reading was always my outlet as a kid. It’s the one subject I always excelled in. What a sad life those kids have.

[MamaJunebug]

Oh hahahahaha - there doesn’t seem to be a SmugJoElissa thread so this goes here: Successful, Swift Otter May be, but Joey-boy doesn’t know basic compass directions. 

NE KC, eh??

Leavenworth is not in “NE Kansas City,” Joseph, if indeed it’s in KC at all, but check out the map. Seems the Flowing Phonies SOTDRT curriculum didn’t include geography ! 

[FloraKitty35]

8 hours ago, MamaJunebug said:

Oh hahahahaha - there doesn’t seem to be a SmugJoElissa thread so this goes here: Successful, Swift Otter May be, but Joey-boy doesn’t know basic compass directions. 

NE KC, eh??

Leavenworth is not in “NE Kansas City,” Joseph, if indeed it’s in KC at all, but check out the map. Seems the Flowing Phonies SOTDRT curriculum didn’t include geography ! 

I have never been to Kansas City, but that looks like NW to me.  (Then again my parents taught me and the evil public school system taught me how to read a map.  When I was 4th grade, all of the children got free Delaware highway maps.  It was a promotional effort that was done for the bicentennial of Delaware being the first state to ratify the constitution.) 

[Leftitinmysnood]

Gag! The vacuousness of 24/7 homemaking! It reminds me of everything I hated about being in a fundie group.  How to label things in your freezer, how many loads of laundry you run a week, how to improve the texture of your health foods to be more like the real thing; and treating all of them as if they affect your salvation. But when you aren't allowed to have books with excitement in them beyond exploding sausages, or have irl friends, what is a girl to do?

On the friend discussion, the fathers in our group didn't believe that children should have friends beyond their siblings. Peers were *always* seen as a bad influence, but many of the girls had like-minded pen-pals and wrore elaborate, grammatically terrifying, Bible verse-laced missives about how many jars of jam they made or head coverings they sewed each week. The Maxwells are still doing the same thing in blog form and it isn't as excusable at 34 as it was at 14.

I'm sure Teri has to eat the same diet or fast the same days as Steve because he is paranoid about something happening to her health and it's a way to feel like he has control. After all, who would take care of him if something happened to her? (Well, we know Sarah would take over the established routines, but helpmeet!)

I'm still lobbying for the next thread title to be "You can leave your vest on, but you can never leave."

[Giraffe]

@Leftitinmysnood, Did the parents read (or at least make it clear they could at any time) the pen pal’s letter before you could read it? That’s awful to not have irl friends!

[Coconut Flan]

14 minutes ago, Leftitinmysnood said:

I'm still lobbying for the next thread title to be "You can leave your vest on, but you can never leave."

It's on the list.  There are still several ahead of it though.  

[Loveday]

15 hours ago, NancyDrewFan1989 said:

The only issue with this is the Maxwells aren't the only fundie families who nix the magic and scary stories. Becky Bontrager wrote that she doesn't let her kids watch or read Disney books. A former fundie Allan Parfitt who's family is friends with the Neely's, Staddon's, and Wilkes mentioned in a post that he was barred from reading the Chronicles of Narnia and The Bobbsey Twins. The Maxwell children probably fill their time with Sarah's books and approved reading on the Gothardian Library for Children. The rest of the family and the children probably read and pray all the time about what to next like cleaning out a freezer and how to use a pizza cutter properly.

The Bobbsey Twins? 

The BOBBSEY TWINS???*

 

*I know, the early editions were often quite racist--the kids had a mammy, for heaven's sake, and as the first books were written in the 1920s you can just imagine the way she was portrayed. But I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be what would keep fundies from letting their children read the Bobbsey Twins. 

 

[Leftitinmysnood]

@Giraffe, I think it was more implied that they would read them if they thought it was a problem. Most of these kids were brainwashed enough that they would have taken any letter with anything heathen to their father immediately. No one was checking to make sure the margins didn't accidentally spell "Satan is lord" in acrostics, though. 

@Loveday I've told my stories before about getting in trouble for sharing "secular" books with the other girls, but many of the families we were around accepted nothing except missionary biographies and Rod and Staff readers without skepticism. Patricia St. John books were usually ok, and some of the Janette Oke animal stories, Gothard's Character Sketches, anything published by Christian Light Publishers, and The Pineapple Story. Anything that portrayed public school, friends taking children away from "family time," lying, even to save someone, talking animals (Balaam's ass has some explaining to do!), immodest clothing, unjoyful attitudes that go unpunished, anything that alluded to fairy tales or used the word "magical." The restrictions were neverending. One family just blacked all that stuff out with a magic marker (ha!).

[HermioneSparrow]

Not surprised but how sad. Harry Potter and Matilda helped me develop my endless love for reading and imagination.

[bluelady]

3 hours ago, Loveday said:

The Bobbsey Twins? 

The BOBBSEY TWINS???*

 

*I know, the early editions were often quite racist--the kids had a mammy, for heaven's sake, and as the first books were written in the 1920s you can just imagine the way she was portrayed. But I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be what would keep fundies from letting their children read the Bobbsey Twins. 

 

Funny off topic story about the Bobbsey Twins.  I read those books as a kid and got confused every time they described someone as coloured.  My 8 year old brain always went to purple or green or rainbow.  I finally asked my dad and he explained it to me, as well as how it was racist and we shouldn't use it.  

My aunt recently gave us some old Hardy Boys books for my sons.  I haven't read them in years but I will before I let my kids read them, if anything so that I can discuss those topics with them beforehand.

[MamaJunebug]

Flossie Bobbsey may have tossed her golden curls in childish willfulness once or twice. That could have been enough to get the series banned!

Mrs. Bobbsey didn’t homeschool and I doubt she cooked much, and likely never laundered, as the help were employed for such holy-homemaking chores.  That arrangement would enrage Steve, along with every other smug, sequestering patriarch. 

Speaking of whom, doubtless he makes TeriFying follow his diet or at least any fasting schedule because control. It really should be his first and second names, born or legal.  

OT: I liked The Happy Hollisters most of all. Anybody recall ‘em? 

[Leftitinmysnood]

4 hours ago, MamaJunebug said:

 

OT: I liked The Happy Hollisters most of all. Anybody recall ‘em? 

So I'm the product of a mixed marriage.  My mom brought the Bobbsey Twins and my dad The Happy Hollisters to the union. I read both. The Happy Hollisters are less cringe-y than the Bobbseys with their hired couple, Dinah and Sam and calling the kids "Little Fat Fairy " and "Little Fat Fireman." Mr. Hollister did his own yardwork and Mrs. Hollister her own cooking and housework. There are some very stereotyped depictions of Native Americans in THH, but I seem to recall "Indy" (yeah. . .) explaining to the kids that modern Native Americans wear jeans,  uh, "dungarees" when they expected buckskin and feathers. Unsurprisingly, my mom also bought the Elsie Dinsmore, R.L. Dabney, and other pro-Lost Cause books.

[Granwych]

On 9/12/2019 at 7:45 PM, NancyDrewFan1989 said:

@anjulibai I think Elissa has always been fundie was well. But, unlike the Maxwell daughters it looks like she came from a family where the women seem depressed all the time. To me, her family seems more mainstream fundie, so by not confirming to the Maxwells way she brings in the dangers of the outside world and *gasp* fun.

When she first married into the borg she did a blurb about how she didn't need friends because she had siblings.  Kinda creepy.  I  love my sibs for sure, but more objective and distanced views are necessary at times.

On 9/13/2019 at 6:36 PM, NancyDrewFan1989 said:

The only issue with this is the Maxwells aren't the only fundie families who nix the magic and scary stories. Becky Bontrager wrote that she doesn't let her kids watch or read Disney books. A former fundie Allan Parfitt who's family is friends with the Neely's, Staddon's, and Wilkes mentioned in a post that he was barred from reading the Chronicles of Narnia and The Bobbsey Twins. The Maxwell children probably fill their time with Sarah's books and approved reading on the Gothardian Library for Children. The rest of the family and the children probably read and pray all the time about what to next like cleaning out a freezer and how to use a pizza cutter properly.

Shoot, the Moodys are  the Maxwells, pomposity and uber Christian and all.

[Maggie Mae]

I don't want to go look, but in my kitchen freezer:

• Several open bags of various frozen vegetables (normandy blend, peas, okra, string beans)
• one box of frozen ramen from Costco
• three partially eaten tubs of ben and jerrys, with lots of frostbite
• one pint of some other brand of ice cream that's been in there for at least two years and is more frost than cream
• a half eaten box of mochi
• vacuum sealed corn cobs from last years garden
• three or four salmon filets, two from last year, one from this year
• a bag of half used gingers
• a bag of ends of onions, celery, carrot tops for broth making
• two bottles of vodka
• a tupperware of ice
• ice cube trays
• a bag of chicken breasts from costco
• a bag of rosemary
• a container of mint
• half used tube of tomato paste

Outside Freezers:

• box of hot dogs, 7-8 years old. It was from a party, we take out packages from the carton/box as needed. Since the two of us eat about two hot dogs per year, it's going to be a while.
• hot dog buns, plenty
• caribou sausage
• caribou meat, ground
• venison, ground, several pounds, packaged separately
• moose, ground, don't know how much is left
• Salmon, full fish
• several lean cusines that his ex girlfriend left when she moved out, in 2011.
• another bag of chicken breasts from costco
• assorted tupperwares with various sauces, meats, gravies, and other odds and ends
• frozen pulled pork
• a pork sholder
• caribou sausages

I'm sure I'm forgetting something. But I absolutely can not judge them on their freezer habits.

 

[Loveday]

8 hours ago, MamaJunebug said:

  

OT: I liked The Happy Hollisters most of all. Anybody recall ‘em? 

Yes! Loved them! Oddly, though, I can't remember much of anything about them, except that I devoured every HH book I could find. 

Regarding freezers, @Maggie Mae mentioned frotstbitten ice cream. Does anyone know a way to avoid that? I've got three partially eaten boxes in my freezer, all of which are growing stalactites (or is it stalagmites?) of ice, and they're not even that old, not much more than a month, if that. A little bit I can tolerate, but the vanilla one is getting to the point it's almost more frostbite than ice cream, I'm about to throw it out. I hate wasting ice  cream, of all things! 

[OhNoNike]

17 minutes ago, Loveday said:

Yes! Loved them! Oddly, though, I can't remember much of anything about them, except that I devoured every HH book I could find. 

Regarding freezers, @Maggie Mae mentioned frotstbitten ice cream. Does anyone know a way to avoid that? I've got three partially eaten boxes in my freezer, all of which are growing stalactites (or is it stalagmites?) of ice, and they're not even that old, not much more than a month, if that. A little bit I can tolerate, but the vanilla one is getting to the point it's almost more frostbite than ice cream, I'm about to throw it out. I hate wasting ice  cream, of all things! 

I have some ice cream like that. I actually use that “iced over” ice cream in smoothies for the kids. 

I learned (from a Christian you tuber of all people) to throw too-ripe bananas into the freezer.  I know we can make banana bread but I work full time and it’s not always a good time to bake. So I peel and throw them into a freezer bag and put straight into the freezer. 

That iced over ice cream and bananas with some milk/ice go into a really nice smoothie my kids like.  You could even throw in some chocolate syrup or peanut butter or whatever.

[divadivine]

41 minutes ago, Loveday said:

Regarding freezers, @Maggie Mae mentioned frotstbitten ice cream. Does anyone know a way to avoid that? I've got three partially eaten boxes in my freezer, all of which are growing stalactites (or is it stalagmites?) of ice, and they're not even that old, not much more than a month, if that. A little bit I can tolerate, but the vanilla one is getting to the point it's almost more frostbite than ice cream, I'm about to throw it out. I hate wasting ice  cream, of all things! 

Try storing the containers in gallon Ziploc bags. It helps me. Or, you could invite the Rodrigues clan over, I’m sure Jilly Vanilli & Dorky David would be happy to finish off the ice cream for you. 

[Loveday]

32 minutes ago, OhNoNike said:

I have some ice cream like that. I actually use that “iced over” ice cream in smoothies for the kids. 

I learned (from a Christian you tuber of all people) to throw too-ripe bananas into the freezer.  I know we can make banana bread but I work full time and it’s not always a good time to bake. So I peel and throw them into a freezer bag and put straight into the freezer. 

That iced over ice cream and bananas with some milk/ice go into a really nice smoothie my kids like.  You could even throw in some chocolate syrup or peanut butter or whatever.

Great ideas! I've always got a couple of too-ripe bananas, and am usually too lazy to make banana bread. It never seems to occur to me to throw one into a smoothie, I don't know why as I'm always putting other fruits into one. 

15 minutes ago, divadivine said:

Try storing the containers in gallon Ziploc bags. It helps me. Or, you could invite the Rodrigues clan over, I’m sure Jilly Vanilli & Dorky David would be happy to finish off the ice cream for you. 

I'll have to be sure to throw at least one almost-empty box into the trash can for Jill.  The Ziploc bag idea sounds good, I'll give it a try. Thanks! 

[MamaJunebug]

4 hours ago, Leftitinmysnood said:

So I'm the product of a mixed marriage.  My mom brought the Bobbsey Twins and my dad The Happy Hollisters to the union. I read both. The Happy Hollisters are less cringe-y than the Bobbseys with their hired couple, Dinah and Sam and calling the kids "Little Fat Fairy " and "Little Fat Fireman." Mr. Hollister did his own yardwork and Mrs. Hollister her own cooking and housework. There are some very stereotyped depictions of Native Americans in THH, but I seem to recall "Indy" (yeah. . .) explaining to the kids that modern Native Americans wear jeans,  uh, "dungarees" when they expected buckskin and feathers. Unsurprisingly, my mom also bought the Elsie Dinsmore, R.L. Dabney, and other pro-Lost Cause books.

GEEZE LOUISE! How did I never catch on to any of that?  I remember the rambling house, the mother “washing and patting dry the tender baby lettuce leaves,” and a station wagon. Was there a preteen named Pam? I remember thinking I was like her when I deftly opened the back door on our station wagon. 

“Indy?” Egad. 

Edited September 15, 2019 by MamaJunebug