Maxwell 40: Wearing Their Vests in an Apartment for Fun

[SassyPants]

Based on the schedule, I’m assuming that Chris works early morning hours before the kids arise, preventing him from performing the AM duties. Does he work from a home office? Teri certainly did not make Chris look like a very hands on father. I wonder what really goes on in those homes when the camera is away? They ALL seem pathologically dependent on Steve. It’s not healthy or sustainable at all. The schedule seems to have a great deal of adult movement, and it lacks logical flow. 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

1 minute ago, SassyPants said:

Based on the schedule, I’m assuming that Chris works early morning hours before the kids arise, preventing him from performing the AM duties. Does he work from a home office? Teri certainly did not make Chris look like a very hands on father. I wonder what really goes on in those homes when the camera is away? They ALL seem pathologically dependent on Steve. It’s not healthy or sustainable at all. The schedule seems to have a great deal of adult movement, and it lacks logical flow. 

She didn't even make him look like an adequate babysitter.

The fact that he needs a "helper" there until damn near 9:00 PM says everything.  

[SassyPants]

Just now, HerNameIsBuffy said:

She didn't even make him look like an adequate babysitter.

The fact that he needs a "helper" there until damn near 9:00 PM says everything.  

I was also surprised at the rather late bedtime. I’d assume these folks would have those kids bathed and in bed by 7-7:30. I bet AnnaMarie does everything in that house. 

[nokidsmom]

2 hours ago, Botkinetti said:

It would be dreadful to finally realize you have spent your life drawing up schedules, avoiding fun and denying you have any individuality - all in service to your fathers idea of what god wants and your mothers depression. Maybe they are all so brainwashed it never occurs to them they could choose a different life or it has and the very idea of disappointing their parents sends them scurrying back to how they have lived before.

What an awful life of fear and judgment and drudgery they live.

They make my Maxwellian family look "fun".   But still there were enough similarities between my parents and Steve / Teri that made for an anxious and dreary life a good part of the time.   IME if you can break through any brainwashing, there is still overcoming the fear of disappointing Mom and Dad.  And standing up for yourself means not only disappointing your parents but also your siblings still on board. 

Luckily my folks did believe in education and working which played a large role in my questioning and finally breaking out of the family cult.    They had some pretty controlling tendencies when it came to certain things but in other ways they surprised us.   It was a weird mix.   My youngest sister is still coming to terms about her too-long time under my parents' roof while the other sister has shown she absorbed my parents' thinking all too well.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

56 minutes ago, Queen Of Hearts said:

It would not shock me if Christopher was going through some depression right now. What their family is going through is traumatising. Plus, remember his mother was unable to cope with basic life with a smaller group of kids, and he has the same genes, so depression may run in the family.  A terrible shock like this might just be too much for him right now. I am speculating, but his doing things like shaving his head (a very kind show of support for Anna Marie I will add) and the trip to visit her just strikes me as someone who may be terrified and doing whatever he can to be close (physically, mentally, etc.) to his wife. 

This may well be the case, but if someone isn't mentally capable of parenting their children properly they should have stopped at what was manageable for them and not had six in quick succession.  

[Giraffe]

I’m glad to know even some of you with kids were wtf at how much outside help he has and it wasn’t me being an arse. 

[Coconut Flan]

1 hour ago, LilMissMetaphor said:

If it's done properly, that's a totally adequate daily amount for schooling.  That being said, these are the Maxes.  But it's surprising how many think that a full school day is required--it really isn't.

In the comments, Teri also reminded us that it is summer and normally school would be out.  As she said these are young children so with somewhat individual attention, they can easily cover what needs to be done academically in a couple of hours.  Teri is doing what is easiest for her to handle which is school work and swimming lessons and she's making sure that with all that's been going on in their lives, that the kids aren't behind and are kept on a routine and occupied.  I think it's fine and probably better for them than hours and hours of lessons a day.

[browngrl]

A friend of mine is a psychiatrist and he told me that one thing he has many of his depressed and anxious patients do is to keep a schedule planner. When many people are depressed/very anxious even the smallest things can be hard to do and many patients are always worried they have missed something important,. Scheduling can give structure and ease anxiety.  He  has them schedule everything eg: take a shower, eat lunch etc. Whenever I see the Maxwell's excessive scheduling I think of my friend's advice. I suspect that scheduling is all they have to stop themselves from curling up in a ball and crying. 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

1 minute ago, browngrl said:

A friend of mine is a psychiatrist and he told me that one thing he has many of his depressed and anxious patients do is to keep a schedule planner. When many people are depressed/very anxious even the smallest things can be hard to do and many patients are always worried they have missed something important,. Scheduling can give structure and ease anxiety.  He  has them schedule everything eg: take a shower, eat lunch etc. Whenever I see the Maxwell's excessive scheduling I think of my friend's advice. I suspect that scheduling is all they have to stop themselves from curling up in a ball and crying. 

I agree.  The depth of their scheduling has always read to me like a strategy for dealing with anxiety.

[nokidsmom]

49 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

I agree.  The depth of their scheduling has always read to me like a strategy for dealing with anxiety.

Always felt between Steve's control issues and Teri's depression, there's a lot of fear and anxiety underlying it all.  Unfortunately the kids all got sucked into it just by being there and by now they all need that extreme scheduling.  

[usmcmom]

I hope my first thought regarding Christopher’s workout time is wrong. Since many people work out immediately after getting up, I hope he is not sleeping until ten while his sisters raise his kids. I can’t see anyone in the Maxwell cult ever sleeping that late, so I am probably wrong.  
 

Dang, Melanie! Can’t you get another sitter while your sister in law fights cancer? Must Anna and Mary continue to work you into their schedule even in a crisis? 
 

You know, while most of the country is juggling work from home and childcare, it doesn’t play very well to show Christopher as someone who can’t do...anything...with his kids. I really want to be sympathetic but it is so bizarre to me tp see how hands-off he is. It seems like the kids would benefit from a little more time with their dad right now. They must be very accustomed to having the household run without Daddy’s involvement.  

[fundiewatch]

In the comments Terri said they can’t wait for the “sister in love”/“daughter in love” to be back. ? 

[fundiefan]

8 minutes ago, fundiewatch said:

In the comments Terri said they can’t wait for the “sister in love”/“daughter in love” to be back. ? 

She also says that homeschooling is something the LORD has qualified her for. How does that work? Does she have a teaching certificate from the LORD? What the hell does it mean to be qualified by the LORD to do something? 

As for Christopher's presences, or not. I am sure he is there, but he works. He has to work and keep life moving and money coming in. They have no insurance - they're paying for this "specialized" treatment. Even if Scamaritan reimburses, they have to pay upfront after negotiating their so called self pay discount. Just because he works at home doesn't mean he is being the parent. When Anna was there & healthy, no doubt he was in his workspace 8 hours a day and she handled the kids. 

I still think much of their daily schedule is whacky & more difficult than it needs to be. But, him not being present & parenting during the day has a reason. I will never understand why Teri does school for an hour then stops for an hour then again for another hour. It being two hours didn't even phase me, they're young kids & it's summer, it's the split that makes me wonder. And the failure to utilize the two hours when the little ones are napping. 

The part that gets me about Christopher is needing one of "the girls" there from 4-9. I can see for dinner; prepping, feeding & cleaning up after 6 kids is a lot of work. But, once that's done, why can't he put his kids to bed? 

It's all just so...Maxwellian. It makes very little sense and begs more questions than existed before the post. Pretty standard fare from them though. 

[ElizaB]

I think it is nice he has a "helper" there so much of the time. These are ( a lot of!) young kids who miss their mom and are scared. I imagine if Chris (who is not used to prepping dinner) were to do the entire evening on his own it would result in a very stressful night without out a lot of quality time spent. I think that by having someone there helping he may be actually able to spend some quality time with his kids. 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

1 minute ago, ElizaB said:

I think it is nice he has a "helper" there so much of the time. These are ( a lot of!) young kids who miss their mom and are scared. I imagine if Chris (who is not used to prepping dinner) were to do the entire evening on his own it would result in a very stressful night without out a lot of quality time spent. I think that by having someone there helping he may be actually able to spend some quality time with his kids. 

It's been 3.5 months, though.  Had he attempted to learn things like prepping dinner, bedtime routines, etc. he might have actually improved his ability to look after his children and better help his wife when she comes home.  

[usedbicycle]

The kids miss their mom and are scared. They need their Dad right now. The Aunts will (hopefully) move on and have their own families some day, but their Dad is their parent. He should, at the very least, wake them up and put them to bed. Now is the time to build a strong functional family unit, to help Anna Marie when she comes home, or if anything bad were to happen to her. 

I'm afraid that if he did end up as a single Dad, neither of his sisters would get married in order to raise his children. Because who else would do it?

[fundiewatch]

I feel bad for Anna and Mary because they both clearly love this role, shepherding young’ns. And they won’t have their own because of Steve. Some of those pictures are the proudest I’ve ever seen them look. Particularly Anna. 

[HoneyBunny]

8 hours ago, Botkinetti said:

It would be dreadful to finally realize you have spent your life drawing up schedules, avoiding fun and denying you have any individuality - all in service to your fathers idea of what god wants and your mothers depression. Maybe they are all so brainwashed it never occurs to them they could choose a different life or it has and the very idea of disappointing their parents sends them scurrying back to how they have lived before.

What an awful life of fear and judgment and drudgery they live.

I remember quite well a blog post from a few years ago, but recently enough that I think all the “girls” were at least 18. Sarah mentioned that Teri had “found time in the schedule” for them to tackle some project, like it was a great gift. I was so struck by the fact that these adults were still living their lives in accordance with their mother’s wishes, not only about what to do but when to do it. 

[Lgirlrocks]

I think Chris parenting and taking care of his kids wouldn’t be a problem if he came from a normal family. Most guys learn how to cook and clean for themselves. My mom stayed home 80% of the week and worked part time. She had my older brother doing his own laundry at 12. We all had chores and learned to cook and clean. My dad wasn’t much of a cook but he knew how to make eggs, sandwiches, soup from a can, and how to heat up pre made meals. If anything had happened to my mom he would have figured out how to take care of us and he worked two jobs out of the house. 
I get he has to provide but he should be taking care of his kids when he isn’t working. I can see some help with meals, they could spend one night doing meal prep a week. It’s sad. His kids need him and probably want to be spending more time with him. 

[Giraffe]

1 hour ago, Lgirlrocks said:

I get he has to provide but he should be taking care of his kids when he isn’t working. I can see some help with meals, they could spend one night doing meal prep a week. It’s sad. His kids need him and probably want to be spending more time with him. 

This is what gets me. It’s like the Maxwells have “replaced” Anna rather than providing childcare while Chris works and maybe a bit more help around the house. The way they have it set up now what does Chris contribute to his family other than finances? No wonder when Anna was hospitalized she appreciated the quiet of the hospital!

Edited July 11, 2020 by Giraffe
Stupid autocorrect

[Bethy]

9 hours ago, freejugar said:

Do the kids only get 2 hours of schooliing per day? That is very little.

It's not awful. Think about the logistics of the average primary-grade classroom - how much time is lost with the teacher giving the directions, checking for understanding, giving the instructions again, dealing with discipline situations, calls from the office, fire drills, random kids wanting to tell you about their new sibling or puppy, etc. In homeschooling you only have to cater to the kid in front of you. Spelling test? You can go on to the next word as soon as the kid finishes writing it, not wait for the kid who struggled to write the whole thing, then erased and started over. I was homeschooled in primary grades and because I was a fast learner and a good reader, I could sometimes knock out a whole day's lessons in under an hour. I entered the traditional classroom ahead of most of my peers. Now if they get to high school and they only do an hour a day of school there's a problem.

5 hours ago, usmcmom said:

Dang, Melanie! Can’t you get another sitter while your sister in law fights cancer? Must Anna and Mary continue to work you into their schedule even in a crisis? 

Who else would she call? I'm actually not trying to be sarcastic. Joe and John both have new babies at home. Her family seems marginalized in their lives. I mean, I guess there's Sarah, but she's done her share of childcare and/or maybe isn't all that good at it.

It does make me wonder why she needed a sitter. I guess it could be something innocuous like a dentist appointment. I can't imagine her pulling one of the girls away from Christopher's right now just to have date night. I just hope she's not having some health crisis of her own. (Don't forget some of us are casually belly-watching after that picture Jesse's MIL put on IG.)

8 hours ago, SassyPants said:

I was also surprised at the rather late bedtime. I’d assume these folks would have those kids bathed and in bed by 7-7:30. I bet AnnaMarie does everything in that house. 

Can't do that. They have to have supper, wash/dry/put away every molecule of supper (there was a WHOLE blog post about that!) and of course there's family Bible time in the evenings. Those 15-minute blocks do not grow on trees!

[SPHASH]

So who is the worst when it comes to being a hands on father, Christopher Maxwell, any of the Duggar men or John Shrader?

[Jigsaw3]

So what happens when Anna Marie comes back? Do all the helpers disappear and Anna Marie is immediately expected to pick up where she left off, running the family from 7am to 9pm, now with additional baby? This is my worry.

When Anna Marie comes back, she's not going to be healthy. She's going to be debilitated and recovering from this high dose chemo. She's been doing ok at her parents, where there are other adults to cook and clean so that her sole responsibility is probably care of Simon Peter, and maybe a little light housework if she feels like it, and if she's feeling poorly she can ask for help with the baby. And then when her ongoing chemo treatments in Kansas City start up, they will probably give her unknown side effects; they certainly won't give her superhuman energy.

She's not going to be able to be back right away taking care of six kids, a house, a useless spouse, a garden, shopping and cooking and cleaning and laundry, not to mention the homeschooling. Plus her older kids are going to need extra time and reassurance from her, since this has probably been traumatic for them too. Based on the blog, Christopher's not exactly a big help around the house, and no matter how much he loves her I don't see any evidence that he's going to step up to take on a bigger role.

I really hope that the helpers are on the schedule to stay for weeks longer, or else Anna's recovery will be severely impeded.

[crunchycarrots]

15 hours ago, fundiefan said:

And today's post is the ver specific schedule of helping out at Christopher's house. Sweet Jesus, give these people a life. I understand the need for consistency - especially at this time with their mother gone - but their time blocks make my brain itch. All the back & forth & interruptions - school for an hour, lunch for an hour with someone else, then school again. It makes no sense to me. Why not do school for two hours then lunch, or do school whene the little ones are napping for two very specific hours? 

And, Anna was at Christopher's for the 4:00 time block, but Mary had to come relieve her so she could go babysit at Nathan's. Why didn't Mary just come at 4 in the first place? 

Why do they make everything they do so ridiiculously convoluted & hard? 

I had an "aha moment" the other day. They remind me of the cousin Eliza Reed from Jane Eyre- busy to the point of scheduling every moment of the day, but never really accomplishing anything. Self righteous and obsessed with religion.  

Quote

Eliza still spoke little: she had evidently no time to talk. I never saw a busier person than she seemed to be; yet it was difficult to say what she did: or rather, to discover any result of her diligence. She had an alarm to call her up early. I know not how she occupied herself before breakfast, but after that meal she divided her time into regular portions, and each hour had its allotted task. Three times a day she studied a little book, which I found, on inspection, was a Common Prayer Book. I asked her once what was the great attraction of that volume, and she said, "the Rubric." Three hours she gave to stitching, with gold thread, the border of a square crimson cloth, almost large enough for a carpet. In answer to my inquiries after the use of this article, she informed me it was a covering for the altar of a new church lately erected near Gateshead. Two hours she devoted to her diary; two to working by herself in the kitchen-garden; and one to the regulation of her accounts. She seemed to want no company; no conversation. I believe she was happy in her way: this routine sufficed for her; and nothing annoyed her so much as the occurrence of any incident which forced her to vary its clockwork regularity.

 When Eliza writes off her sister Georgiana, she gives her this parting piece of advice.

Quote

Georgiana[…]Take one day; share it into sections; to each section apportion its task: leave no stray unemployed quarters of an hour, ten minutes, five minutes—include all; do each piece of business in its turn with method, with rigid regularity. The day will close almost before you are aware it has begun; and you are indebted to no one for helping you to get rid of one vacant moment: you have had to seek no one's company, conversation, sympathy, forbearance; you have lived, in short, as an independent being ought to do

It almost makes me wonder if Terri got her inspiration for scheduling from Charlotte Bronte. 

[usmcmom]

3 hours ago, Bethy said:

Who else would she call? I'm actually not trying to be sarcastic. Joe and John both have new babies at home. Her family seems marginalized in their lives. I mean, I guess there's Sarah, but she's done her share of childcare and/or maybe isn't all that good at it.

 

 

I was thinking of her family. I thought they had fairly regular contact with Melanie’s parents and siblings. Of course, I am speculating but I wonder if all the sons and their wives are just so accustomed to having Anna and Mary available for childcare that they just ask without thinking of what other options might be available. 
 

On another note, can somebody refresh my memory? Do all the guys work together?  Is Christopher working for a family business?