Maxwell 41: Taking a Short Vest Rest

[allyisyourpally5]

Oh yes. Mustn’t make work an idol. But in the process of not letting daughters go out to work, they have filled their days with “busy work” basically because it’s apparently much more Godly to fill your time with excessive cleaning, making charts to chop salad and dragging out the smallest tasks over hours that could actually be done in about 10 minutes. 
I have had a lot of time off this year due to Covid 19. I am so bored. I am so excited to be back at work in September (I’m a sports coach and school administrator). And that’s with having entertainment - a TV, family quiz nights online, meeting friends  - my head just spins with what they call busy and how much thinking must be in their heads over nothing.

 

I think it looks awful that all the girls are at home. Now I’m not someone who believes kids turn 18 or go to college and they need to be gone. I went to college, spent my summers in America (Summer Camp!) then lived in the States for two years. I earned money but ultimately on returning home I had to move back home with my parents for two years - property debt free? Even the hardest working young adults where I live would struggle to find the a least £250k needed around here (for a one bedroom property). I moved out at 25 and have a mortgage. 
But I always worked! Full time! I was expected too - I wanted to! 
I honestly can’t see how many people look at the Maxwells in admiration as parents when they have a 38 year old still at home who has never worked outside the family and sharing a room with her sisters (we know there is at least one empty bedroom now the boys have all gone). I’m sorry but Sarah should be making her own money (family business - fine, it thats gives her enough) but she should be actual full time hours and having her own schedule in her own home. I’m single too - it can be done! Likewise to be honest Anna should be more on her way than she is. Auntie Playtime and whatever is sweet but babysitting is a teenagers job or a job that family members do in the evening after work. If Anna is good at looking after kids she should be properly employed as a nanny and better yet study child development and education. 
 

I don’t think there’s hope for any of them. Steve and Teri have crippled them. Nice parenting.

[Cults-r-us]

I have a couple thoughts. Some fundie fathers have a short checklist for their son's bride, seeming to have no internal alarm system. (I think of little Huxley, whose internal jerk-alert system alarmed when he met MS.) Pa Keller, for example: Right religion (check), religous family (check), right sex (check) and he hands off Anna and Esther to their (unworthy) grooms. Pa Bontrager: Same list (check) + father has vasectomy reversal (excited check) and he hands Chelsey to John (by far, a better catch than the previous 2). But a fellow courting a Maxwell girl? He'd have to live close, own his home, be self-employed, have a freezer full of pre-portioned  bean burritos and pre-counted animal crackers, her vest ready and full of chores, her schedule, including exercise posted and THEN acceed Stevehova is the boss of him(!) -plus agree to go to his dismal nursing home church. Any takers?

[SPHASH]

New post up.  Steve's birthday.  My birthday message for Steve-Go Fuck Yourself.  

[fundiefan]

That is a heartless birthday post. Everything written has a cited bible verse. How miserable and awful and tiny life must be to make a birthday post about your freaking husband that is esentially a recitation of bible verses? 

Not one personal thing. Not one thing to indicate she knows him. Nothing saying she loves him. 

Jesus must weep daily at the way these people have interpreted his ideas for life and how they limit themselves to such sad, unhealthy degrees. 

If Jesus/god/whoever didn't want people to actually be happy and love and enjoy the life their given, he/she/it would not have given us brains or feelings. 

Being robotic is a waste of life. 

[HeartsAFundie]

21 hours ago, fundiefan said:

Personally, I despise - I mean, really despise - the thought/saying that motherhood is "in the trenches". You're not fighting a freaking war. You are raising a human being; one you chose to have, I might add. Motherhood is hard - parenthood is had - but it's not a war or a battle. Not for normal people, anyway. I guess in a way it makes sense fundies would see it as fighting in the trenches, because they are fighting every natural instinct of themselves and their childrend and "training" them to grow up be a member of the army of Jesus or some stupid thing. 

Whatever. I am honestly appalled by that phrase. To me, everything about it is wrong, and come from a place of bad parenting choices. 

I always tell people that parenthood is like the Peace Corps...The toughest job you'll ever love.  

[IReallyAmHopewell]

16 hours ago, Bethy said:

You don't suppose (and I ask this with mostly snark, but possibly it's real) that they hold to some traditional eldest-sister-must-marry-first logic, and since it's become quite clear that they will never marry off Sarah, the others are doomed?

I mean, that was a pretty widely accepted rule in former generations, yes? And we know how much fundies like to live in the past...

I've never see that as a thing in their circle. Marrying them off seems to be what matters--except to Steve.

13 minutes ago, HeartsAFundie said:

I always tell people that parenthood is like the Peace Corps...The toughest job you'll ever love.  

I've done both. Peace Corps is a two-year party compared to parenting.

[PennySycamore]

@fundiefan,  the only time when motherhood might be considered to be in the trenches ....well, you know what I'm talking about if yo've seen They Shall Not Grow Old, Peter Jackson's masterpiece about WWI.  

@Bethy, two movies on TCM this week had the oldest daughter marrying first or the daughters needing to marry in order as their basic plot:  You Never Were Lovelier with Rita Hayworth and Fred Astaire and Seven Sweethearts with SZ Sakall, Marsha Hunt and Kathryn Grayson.  It wasn't a theme; they were just two films made by two of their stars of the day as part of Summer Under the Stars.

ETA:  @fundiefan,  is it possible that Teri doesn't love Steve that much anymore?  Ot the whatever feeling she has about anything are pretty much extinct?

Edited August 7, 2020 by PennySycamore

[anjulibai]

So, the Maxwells seem to have forgotten how long Teri Steve have been married. I noted earlier that their bio says they've been married 45 years. In this birthday post, Teri says they've been married 44 years. 

Their 46th anniversary is on the 17th. 

Get it together, Maxwells!

[FluffySnowball]

11 hours ago, allyisyourpally5 said:

I don’t think there’s hope for any of them. Steve and Teri have crippled them. Nice parenting.

I agree, Steve and Teri have crippled their daughters. It’s really sad. 

Your last paragraph actually made me wonder: are there any theories as to what the Maxwell daughters will do once the parents pass? Steve and Teri still aren’t that old, but in a few decades, the issue will arise regardless. Do you guys thing the daughters will keep living in the house? Are they allowed to inherit it, or will Steve want to give his home to a man, so to one or all of his sons? Urgh, just typing this out hurt...  

[MamaJunebug]

On 8/5/2020 at 9:13 PM, lilith said:

“God has been so gracious, and these past months have been very full and definitely had its challenges.”

Good god Sarah, either you don’t proof read or you have no ear for the English language. Why you feel called to be a “writer” is a mystery to me - if you’re the most literary of your siblings the others mustn’t be able to string the most basic of sentences together. 
And while on the topic of Sarah The Writer, how does it take her so long to write her extremely simplistic books? I honestly don’t see why she couldn’t churn out one a month. I know she “researches” every scene because she has absolutely zero imagination, but it’s not like they have exciting and diverse settings anyway. The fact that those books are each the result of an agonised year long writing process baffles me.

I’m a retired professional writer/editor.  One of my enjoyable post-career gigs was acting as a part-time valet to a rich old lady. 

She wanted to write her memoirs, and she wanted some other project done. She announced one day that her other valet  would ghostwrite her memoirs and that I would handle the other project. 

I mentioned that I had worked as a writer. She only gave me an irritated, back of the hand, “away with you, peasant” gesture.  

The next week she informed me that her son had told her about my background and that I would write her book. I occasionally wonder what the book would have been if she’d insisted on her other valet (a certified health care professional) writing it, as she initially planned. 

I tell this story because I think Steve, as cocksure in his own judgment as the rich old lady was in hers, got it in his head one day to make Sarah Rae the family writer and that  was all anyone else ever had to say about it. 

On 8/6/2020 at 9:51 AM, SPHASH said:

I had another Maxhell dream last night.  Chris hired me to homeschool his kids in a one room school house a la Little House on the Prairie because Anna was too sick.  Chelsy, John, and family moved to Iowa and into Marlin and Becky's basement.  Melanie confided to me Steve was not happy about it.  Jesse helped them move.  And after they left the rest of the family included the extended family went for a walk/run around the neighborhood and the unmarried girls wore the bridesmaid dresses from John and Chelsy's wedding while running.  Then they gathered in Steve's house for dinner.

I’d have given money to have this dream instead of mine, in which St. Mary’s church AND the rectory in Kembleford burned to the ground, and that was the end of the Father Brown series.

Father Brown, Mrs. McCarthy and all the other characters survived without a scratch, but the series was over. 

Awful!!! 

Edited August 7, 2020 by MamaJunebug

[Alcyone]

21 minutes ago, anjulibai said:

So, the Maxwells seem to have forgotten how long Teri Steve have been married. I noted earlier that their bio says they've been married 45 years. In this birthday post, Teri says they've been married 44 years. 

Their 46th anniversary is on the 17th. 

Get it together, Maxwells!

They may have been married for almost 46 years, but only 44 count because during the first few years of marriage they were unsaved heathen. Teri says they were converted within weeks of one another. Any guesses who went first?

[lilith]

9 minutes ago, Alcyone said:

They may have been married for almost 46 years, but only 44 count because during the first few years of marriage they were unsaved heathen. Teri says they were converted within weeks of one another. Any guesses who went first?

They had two conversions - one where they became born again christians and one where The Lord convicted Steve to really read the bible, get his vasectomy reversed and to become a full time lunatic for The Lord. I don’t know if they count the first one given that they claim to both be first generation christians despite being raised in church going homes.

[kpmom]

4 hours ago, FluffySnowball said:

 

Your last paragraph actually made me wonder: are there any theories as to what the Maxwell daughters will do once the parents pass? Steve and Teri still aren’t that old, but in a few decades, the issue will arise regardless. Do you guys thing the daughters will keep living in the house? Are they allowed to inherit it, or will Steve want to give his home to a man, so to one or all of his sons? Urgh, just typing this out hurt...  

They actually wrote a post about that several years ago.  I think they were getting questions about it.

They said if the sisters are not married, yes, they would inherit the house.  They also said the sisters could make a living out of their writing and drawing "talents".

I do agree with the poster who said she thought Sarah makes  pretty good money on her books.  I'm betting of all their books, Sarah's sell the best.  Not because they're good, but because they do fill a very, very narrow niche.

 

[PennySycamore]

@MamaJunebug,  I need to figure out when our PBS station replays Father Brown.  8 PM on Saturday night is not always great for me especially this year with the Essentials on TCM.  Of course, I could just get PBS Passport and I could watch it whenever it was good for me.  

[Bethy]

2 hours ago, kpmom said:

They actually wrote a post about that several years ago.  I think they were getting questions about it.

They said if the sisters are not married, yes, they would inherit the house.  They also said the sisters could make a living out of their writing and drawing "talents".

This is the promise, but I could see it playing out differently when the time comes, if they haven't pinned it all down legally. Would the three sisters really be able to stay in that enormous house if Joe or John is still in a split-foyer bursting at the seams with blessings? Or if Jesse and his Anna have decided to be done with apartment living and want to live in the big house with what will undoubtedly be a growing brood by then? My money was originally on Chris/Anna to have the biggest family (around Christmas I would've predicted no fewer than ten children for them) and they were fine because the house where they live is a flipped copy of the current mothership. But John's wife is one of twelve...and producing babies doesn't seem to be troublesome for her. I could see them outgrowing their split-foyer in well under a decade. Hopefully they wouldn't pressure the sisters to swap houses, and leave them with what would undoubtedly be a pretty beat-up split-foyer after that many kids, while they moved into the mothership mortgage-free. 3nna is from a huge family (although I believe several of her siblings are adopted, so maybe hyper-fecundity isn't actually in her DNA) but married Jesse at such a young age that she's got all the time in the world to birth the biggest crew. In any case, I hope the sisters are cared for and allowed to live their lives the way they want, and not parceled out to brothers or shipped out to the smallest home on the compound as their brothers' families grow.

[Bethy]

On 8/6/2020 at 9:29 PM, ElizaB said:

The Moody books aren't good writing and their content is definitely snarkable. However, I think they are still a "success." The Maxwells were right in the fact that their really isn't a lot of literature for really conservative families. There are some old books that definitely fit in their belief system- but not many with modern characters. I think they really do sell a lot of Sarah's books and she makes good money from them. 

The Moodys was a good idea- poorly executed- but still a commercial success

Something can be of objectively poor quality and still be a commercial success. And for families who truly want "literature" about a beige family that spends its days reading the Bible, baking bread, and apologizing to each other for fleeting unkind thoughts, the Moody series fits the bill. As I think back on the book series I read in elementary school/middle school, I remember...

• The Bradford (Jerry Jenkins) dealt with some tough crap. Like child abuse and racism and kidnapping. Two of the kids run away from home when one is accused of something he didn't do.
• The Alex series had a protagonist who frequently outright lied or was otherwise deceitful. Her getting the consequences of her actions was usually the moral of the story but she kept doing the stuff.
• Mandie was a bit of a feminist, and she snuck out of the house to meet her Uncle Ned, and also she had a rough early life because her father died and her evil stepmother sent her away to live with her uncle, and her actual mom was still out there somewhere, and then she married Mandie's uncle, or...something. Not your typical nuclear mom/dad/zillion kids fundie fam.
• The Elizabeth Gail books were dark, way too dark for the age group for which they're intended, and the Sadie Rose books weren't far behind. 
• Cedar River Daydreams (which, near as I can tell, were Christian fiction's answer to Sweet Valley High) had lots of anger and discontentment, with a smattering of unkind language directed at a main character's brother who had special needs. There's an unplanned pregnancy in one book and a suicide in another. And much of it centered around kids trying to fit in with the crowd at school. The HORROR! But I was reading them at an age when Maxfans are reading the Moodys for the umpteenth time and writing fan mail to Sarah.
• SO MANY book series geared toward girls were totally boy-crazy. Christy Miller might even have kissed her guy BEFORE SHE GOT SAVED! (Spoiler: she marries him in college, so she didn't give away too many pieces of her heart at least!) And that wasn't the only series where it seemed like the main character was all about finding a guy even in her early teens.
• Oldie-but-still-around classics the Sugar Creek Gang is definitely geared toward boys, but they shirk their work and talk back to their parents from time to time, and they go on adventures without parental supervision that sometimes put them in danger. Somebody's dad has a drinking problem. Also I think they might hang their overalls on the tree by the creek and skinny dip. It was the 1940s.

So way too much adventure, misbehavior, and actual noticing of the opposite sex in just about everything I read growing up, and that's only what I checked out of the CHURCH library! Never mind Nancy Drew, Anastasia Krupnik, and all the Judy Blume books I read. For super-sheltered families, none of the above series will fly. So it's all Moodys, all the time*

*for the 15-minute block of time devoted to the entire family, with kids ranging in age from 3 weeks to 17 years, to read aloud the same book and claim it appeals to all of them equally.

[moreorlessnu]

On 8/7/2020 at 6:53 AM, allyisyourpally5 said:

Oh yes. Mustn’t make work an idol. But in the process of not letting daughters go out to work, they have filled their days with “busy work” basically because it’s apparently much more Godly to fill your time with excessive cleaning, making charts to chop salad and dragging out the smallest tasks over hours that could actually be done in about 10 minutes. 

Is it fair to say that, given the fact that the Maxwell family makes doing not much seem so "busy", that they are cognizant of how un-busy they are compared to other people, and are trying to make up for that by appearing busy?

[usmcmom]

2 minutes ago, moreorlessnu said:

Is it fair to say that, given the fact that the Maxwell family makes doing not much seem so "busy", that they are cognizant of how un-busy they are compared to other people, and are trying to make up for that by appearing busy?

I think so. I have been guilty of this very thing. The first couple years my kids were both in school full time and I was still a stay-at-home mom, people often asked what I did with all my free time. I often found myself listing ALL THE THINGS. 
 

The questions picked up again when they were in high school and I was STILL a stay-at-home mom. By then, I was able to say “I just do the things that need to be done.” Sometimes, I’d be sarcastic and say “Well, usually I just eat Twinkies and watch Oprah.” 

[allyisyourpally5]

2 hours ago, usmcmom said:

I think so. I have been guilty of this very thing. The first couple years my kids were both in school full time and I was still a stay-at-home mom, people often asked what I did with all my free time. I often found myself listing ALL THE THINGS. 
 

The questions picked up again when they were in high school and I was STILL a stay-at-home mom. By then, I was able to say “I just do the things that need to be done.” Sometimes, I’d be sarcastic and say “Well, usually I just eat Twinkies and watch Oprah.” 

The thing is, for most people there’s nothing wrong with being a stay at home mom - I’m not a mom but have looked after kids such as my niece and nephew (and worked with them too!) and realise just how hard it is and how sometimes you can’t even explain what you’ve been doing yet you haven’t stopped. Heck it happened to me already on days by myself!

But Sarah, Anna and Mary don’t have children.  They are at an age and time in their lives where they should be working and living for themselves, not still under mommy and daddy’s watch and schedule. I just hate the hypocrisy - Steve banging on about teaching children to work hard and work work work and no fun yet in reality his daughters don’t really do anything hard, just busy work and chores that his grandchildren also do!

[Black Aliss]

13 hours ago, Bethy said:

• Oldie-but-still-around classics the Sugar Creek Gang is definitely geared toward boys, but they shirk their work and talk back to their parents from time to time, and they go on adventures without parental supervision that sometimes put them in danger. Somebody's dad has a drinking problem. Also I think they might hang their overalls on the tree by the creek and skinny dip. It was the 1940s.

Oh, thank you for this trip down memory lane. Our church library had very little in the way of kidlit, but it had all of the Sugar Creek Gang books. OT: I think there still exists, among booksellers and some librarians, the belief that boys will not read a book that features girls but girls will read a book that features boys, so if the budget is limited. . .

But, I digress. I remember a couple of things from the SCG books even after all these years. There was a character who was always carving his initials into trees, benches, anything he could dig his knife into, and the narrator speculated that his friend did this because he knew he was not going to make much of a mark on the world as a grown-up so he was determined to make as many marks as he could while he was still a kid.

And one time our hero's parents took the entire SCG on a trip to the Jim Crow South. The kids were intrigued by the signs over the drinking fountains and one of them declared that he was going to try the "colored water". He was disappointed that it tasted no different from the white water.

I can't say that I exactly enjoyed reading these books, but at that age I would read just about anything for the sake of reading, no matter how awful.

2 hours ago, usmcmom said:

I think so. I have been guilty of this very thing. The first couple years my kids were both in school full time and I was still a stay-at-home mom, people often asked what I did with all my free time. I often found myself listing ALL THE THINGS. 
 

The questions picked up again when they were in high school and I was STILL a stay-at-home mom. By then, I was able to say “I just do the things that need to be done.” Sometimes, I’d be sarcastic and say “Well, usually I just eat Twinkies and watch Oprah.” 

My response was always the sarcastic one. I remember a friend of Mr. Black's asking me, when our firstborn was barely a year old, when I was planning to return to work. And then asked incredulously, "You mean you're just going to sit around on your ass all day?"

I don't think I've spoken to him since.

[SassyPants]

Vest wearing Steve, a Lunatic for the Lord needs to be the title of the next thread. Thanks @lilith!

[MamaJunebug]

22 hours ago, Bethy said:

This is the promise, but I could see it playing out differently when the time comes, if they haven't pinned it all down legally. Would the three sisters really be able to stay in that enormous house if Joe or John is still in a split-foyer bursting at the seams with blessings? Or if Jesse and his Anna have decided to be done with apartment living and want to live in the big house with what will undoubtedly be a growing brood by then? My money was originally on Chris/Anna to have the biggest family (around Christmas I would've predicted no fewer than ten children for them) and they were fine because the house where they live is a flipped copy of the current mothership. But John's wife is one of twelve...and producing babies doesn't seem to be troublesome for her. I could see them outgrowing their split-foyer in well under a decade. Hopefully they wouldn't pressure the sisters to swap houses, and leave them with what would undoubtedly be a pretty beat-up split-foyer after that many kids, while they moved into the mothership mortgage-free. 3nna is from a huge family (although I believe several of her siblings are adopted, so maybe hyper-fecundity isn't actually in her DNA) but married Jesse at such a young age that she's got all the time in the world to birth the biggest crew. In any case, I hope the sisters are cared for and allowed to live their lives the way they want, and not parceled out to brothers or shipped out to the smallest home on the compound as their brothers' families grow.

As I read this, the opening scenes from Emma Thompson's version of Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility” crowded out everything.

In the first scene, the dying paterfamilias tells his son to be sure his stepmother and half-sisters are well and fairly cared for.

Scene Two: The son and his wife easily talk themselves into going directly against the dead man’s wishes, and leave the widow and her daughters in poverty. 

The maiden Maxwell sisters don’t need the fathership! A split-foyer will suffice! Why, those old ladies should be paying their landlords/brothers rent! 

Edited August 9, 2020 by MamaJunebug

[allyisyourpally5]

5 hours ago, MamaJunebug said:

 

The maiden Maxwell sisters don’t need the fathership! A split-foyer will suffice! Why, those old ladies should be paying their landlords/brothers rent! 

Worse : I think they’ll be paying their nephews and wives rent! If the pattern continues, little Joshua will probably be married in about 13 years time and will need a home debt free - closely followed by Andrew, and then the rest of the boys. I predict Steve and Teri’s home will be left to the next boy in line. Or members of the family will “have it laid on their hearts” that Sarah, Anna and Mary will live with the nephews while Abby and the girls remain shacked up with their parents.

My gosh I hope this pattern breaks. Jesse moving further out gives me some hope. Someone in the home is willing to break a bit further out - one brother may allow his daughters to marry.....

[smittykins]

20 hours ago, usmcmom said:

I think so. I have been guilty of this very thing. The first couple years my kids were both in school full time and I was still a stay-at-home mom, people often asked what I did with all my free time. I often found myself listing ALL THE THINGS. 
 

The questions picked up again when they were in high school and I was STILL a stay-at-home mom. By then, I was able to say “I just do the things that need to be done.” Sometimes, I’d be sarcastic and say “Well, usually I just eat Twinkies and watch Oprah.” 

Kind of like “What does Carol Brady DO all day?  They have Alice!”(Right up there with “How does a staff architect support six kids, a stay-at-home wife, and a live-in housekeeper?”)

[Hane]

Circling back to Teri’s effusive birthday post about Stevehovah: Let is not forget that she wrote and published a book titled “My Delight: Loving My Husband.” (Excuse me while I throw up in my mouth a little.) There’s no way in absolute hell Stevehovah would write a companion volume about her.