Mom's Corner by Teri

[Tatar-tot]

On 1/13/2022 at 12:38 PM, freejugar said:

Hey Teri takes them to a picnic yearly. https://blog.titus2.com/2019/04/25/the-third-annual-spring-grandmas-picnic/

What more do you want?

My guess is that the kids don't want to. Grandpa and grandma aren't as fun as the aunties.

What a drag - sitting along a cement wall while grandma towers over them???  Seriously?  How much work would it be to bring a blanket with everyone sitting saying a prayer or laughing about the events of the day??? Steve and Teri are truly detached from any real human interaction.

[Lista]

On 1/15/2022 at 6:11 PM, Tatar-tot said:

What a drag - sitting along a cement wall while grandma towers over them???  Seriously?  How much work would it be to bring a blanket with everyone sitting saying a prayer or laughing about the events of the day??? Steve and Teri are truly detached from any real human interaction.

I totally agree.  And how embarrassing for those kids.  She could’ve found a little park or a grassy area for them to eat. 

[feministxtian]

trying to keep my 3 grands in roughly the same space has about the same success rate as herding cats. Not so itty-bitty would be fussing up a storm about sitting in the sun, on concrete. Grandson would be running for the play area. Itty-bitty would follow grandson and see how badly she can scare the adults (she's utterly fearless). 

I've been known to end up wrasslin' with the little ones on more than one occasion. Grandson ends up wanting to cuddle instead, which is just fine with me. Itty-bitty thinks that if Grandma is on the floor, Grandma is her personal jungle gym. Love it. Not so itty-bitty is at that stage where she'd rather fix Grandma's hair than wrassle. That's always fun too....she's so funny. 

Its a damn shame that Teri suffered for so long without help. Maybe if she'd gotten help years ago she'd be more active. I actually feel sorry for her but would love to give Steve a "talking to" about mental health issues. Fucker. 

[Austrian Atheist]

I'm an introvert person, I like it quiet, I like my solitude, I don't like chaos. I'm childfree by choice. (I don't hate children, but child rearing is not my cup of tea.) I get strong vibes from Teri, that she may be the same. (Of course this is only speculation.) I'm happy to decide freely for myself, I'm happy my partner didn't pressure me into getting children or more children than I could handle. 

In an altenate universum she could be a happy woman with only a small family and a career, and receive all the medical and psychological treatments she needs.

This might be not a poplar opinion, but I cannot help feeling sorry for her.

Edited January 17, 2022 by Austrian Atheist

[HerNameIsBuffy]

10 hours ago, feministxtian said:

I actually feel sorry for her but would love to give Steve a "talking to" about mental health issues. Fucker. 

She is an adult with her own agency.  I'd rather someone hypothetically speak with Teri about her issues than her headship.  

I have very little sympathy for some second gen women who buy into this stuff, but none for her.  She wasn't raised with brainwashing and as an intelligent woman who had every reason to know better it was her obligation to look into treatment before having more children to abuse and neglect.  

Edited January 17, 2022 by HerNameIsBuffy

[Austrian Atheist]

2 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

She is an adult with her own agency.  I'd rather someone hypothetically speak with Teri about her issues than her headship.  

I have very little sympathy for some second gen women who buy into this stuff, but none for her.  She wasn't raised with brainwashing and as an intelligent woman who had every reason to know better it was her obligation to look into treatment before having more children to abuse and neglect.  

I total understand this, and I don't  want to excuse her for her share of the blame. I don't know, how exactly she grew up. Her family probably wasn't fundi back then, but still there could have been difficult family dynamics. A lot of women have a hard time to leave abusive relationships, and in this case the abuse probably was a lot of subtle and passive aggressive stuff over a long time period. That's really hard to change.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

3 hours ago, Austrian Atheist said:

I total understand this, and I don't  want to excuse her for her share of the blame. I don't know, how exactly she grew up. Her family probably wasn't fundi back then, but still there could have been difficult family dynamics. A lot of women have a hard time to leave abusive relationships, and in this case the abuse probably was a lot of subtle and passive aggressive stuff over a long time period. That's really hard to change.

I know, and I should have more sympathy coming from an abusive marriage myself, but I think that's why I don't.

I know how hard it is to get out when you're financially trapped, and more than that I know the hope of wanting to believe the times when things are good and peaceful will last....but even when I was broken and didn't know what to do I knew it was wrong.  I knew I had to get out for my kids because I didn't want them to think this was okay.  I certainly wouldn't have tried to sell my children on that lifestyle as the way a marriage should be so they could grow up to be as trapped as I was.  Initially my goals were to fix the marriage so they'd have a happy childhood and when that didn't work plan B was to get them out of there before they were old enough for him to aim his anger at them.  

It's definitely not easy, but Teri is not a woman who tried to help her kids and failed.  She's a woman who sacrificed her children so she could placate her husband.  She didn't choose the path of least resistance because it was all she could do at that time.  She continues to choose it, makes money trying to shame others into choosing it for their children, and she expects her children to limit her grandchildren in the neglectful Steve honoring way in which she raised hers.  

There is an aspect of this I admit I don't understand and that's her type of depression.  I've dealt with situational bouts after the death of my parents, my divorce, job loss etc. but not the kind that isn't directly related to a major life event knocking me on my ass.  Can her type of depression blind her to the harm she has done to her children and continues to advocate for her grandchildren and others?  I don't see how it can, but I could be wrong.

If she was unable to function due to her depression all the more reason to opt out of parenting and let someone else handle it if she couldn't, and that includes having the reversal kids.  (not that someone else should have had them, ha, just that she should have stopped when she knew she couldn't parent adequately.)  She's not a dumb woman, she knows people have their limitations and deliberately making children suffer because her husband pushed her past hers is nothing but cruelty, IMO.

All parents make mistakes, some even major ones, I absolutely have things I wish I'd done differently for my kids.  I understand mistakes, then you self correct and when you talk to your kids about it as both children and when they're adults you admit you were wrong and apologize.  Then you hope they forgive you, but understand if they can't.

 But the callous indifference she shows towards her family and children in general is more than that, it's not a mistake.  It's actively advocating for harm.   

 

Edited January 17, 2022 by HerNameIsBuffy

[Black Aliss]

18 hours ago, Lista said:

I totally agree.  And how embarrassing for those kids.  She could’ve found a little park or a grassy area for them to eat. 

I think that's the only way she felt she could manage them--if they were all sitting in a row and she stood in front of them. With blankets on the grass one of them could have made a break for it while she was tending to another one. That's what happens when you have a bunch of kids with not a single internal locus of control among them. Of course, I would have though A, B, and C would have been useful for kid wrangling, but maybe Teri still sees them as unpredictable toddlers.

Edited January 17, 2022 by Black Aliss

[Tatar-tot]

3 hours ago, Black Aliss said:

I think that's the only way she felt she could manage them--if they were all sitting in a row and she stood in front of them. With blankets on the grass one of them could have made a break for it while she was tending to another one. That's what happens when you have a bunch of kids with not a single internal locus of control among them. Of course, I would have though A, B, and C would have been useful for kid wrangling, but maybe Teri still sees them as unpredictable toddlers.

If that is the only way she can handle them then she should not be alone with the gang under any circumstances.

[Cults-r-us]

10 hours ago, Austrian Atheist said:

.

This might be not a poplar opinion, but I cannot help feeling sorry for her.

I've said before I had a friend who was in the same homeschooling group with the Maxwells way back when Steve worked, the kids were in sports and activities and they seemed normal.

So how did they catch the terrible wackadoodle disease by which they are affected today? Bit by bit, year by year, they gave up normalness until they became unrecognizable to people who knew them before. Steve was allowed to indulge in paranoia and see the opportunity for sin, everywhere, all the time, and escalated his efforts to isolate everyone and combat everyone's sinful impulses, using religion and righteousness to justify his beliefs. Why didn't Terri bolt? She probably believed Steve knew what he was talking about. Did she have a clue isolating and controlling the family was psychological abuse? I doubt it.

They did not become crazy overnight. A hallmark identifier of craziness is lacking insight, of which they are certainly deficient. Also, what you see when you are on the inside of a situation is not the same as what people on the outside see looking in. Clearly we see the Maxwell home was not a healthy place in which to raise children, but the Maxwells (who are no strangers to false beliefs) probably thought their child-rearing practices were above par.

I suspect Terri may have a kiss of autism in addition to her other problems, which may explain her troubles relating to family members.

In summary, of course I feel sorry for these people, all of them Katey.

[Austrian Atheist]

I wonder if Teri's depression and Steve's paranoia (or whatever it is) struck at the same time? And that's why everything escalated?

Maybe is "I feel sorry" not the right term. More: I see the potential she would have had under non-fundi circumstances. And that's what make me kind of sad.

Edited January 18, 2022 by Austrian Atheist

[Alisamer]

15 minutes ago, Austrian Atheist said:

Maybe is "I feel sorry" not the right term. More: I see the potential she would have had under non-fundi circumstances. And that's what make me kind of sad.

I agree - it's almost entirely speculation based on looks and what they've shown us, but Teri seems very much like without the religion and Steve's paranoia, she might have ended up with just a couple kids. She seems like the type who'd enjoy living in a small mountain town, shopping at the local co-op and farmer's market, and enjoying her own hobbies... like hiking. She'd be happy seeing the grandkids once in a while with their parents present, and prefer them once they were old enough to help her garden or go on hikes with her. She might volunteer somewhere, or foster cats, or something like that. 

Maybe she's not like that at all, really. And it's her fault really that she is living the way she is, whether she likes it or not. She chose Steve, she stuck with Steve, and she clearly buys in to all the religious stuff he uses to lord over people. Maybe she's just as bad as him, but quieter about it.

She just seems so unhappy generally, and like she's barely coping sometimes, and it seems like she could be so much more. And Steve seems so self-righteous and conceited and dominating. 

But who knows what they are really like. I just feel like that whole family (except possibly Stevehovah), could just be... more. But they're not. And it's part Steve, and part them letting Steve dictate things, and a big part fear brought on by religion. They all need massive amounts of therapy.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

47 minutes ago, Austrian Atheist said:

I wonder if Teri's depression and Steve's paranoia (or whatever it is) struck at the same time? And that's why everything escalated?

Maybe is "I feel sorry" not the right term. More: I see the potential she would have had under non-fundi circumstances. And that's what make me kind of sad.

That's a fascinating theory.  Like some perfect storm where they both had different mental health issues but they hit at the same time so neither was able to support the other in getting help.  

Like a weird version of folie a deaux where they don't share the same disorder, but competing disorders hitting at the same time making each other's worse.

Of all the fundy families we follow I think the Maxwell's would have been the hardest for me to have been born into.  Teri can't even fake affection for her kids and as a kid my mom could always make me feel better with a cuddle or a giggle or just some real attention.   A naturally affectionate mom went a long way for me as a child and I think I'd have been broken without it.  (Tons of mommy issues as an adult, but she got some stuff very right.)

I think she's far scarier than Steve and I'm in no way letting him off the hook when I wonder if he doubled down on the rigidity in part due to her inability to handle anything outside the schedule.  

[Jana814]

Teri didn’t protect her kids from Steve. When he started to become more religious she should have left him & taken the kids she had. But she didn’t. When he decided to have the reversal even though she could barely handle the 3 kids she already had she didn’t stop him.  She did & I think still does things to make Steve happy to keep peace. From the meals she cooks to the activities she does it’s all Steve. 

Edited January 19, 2022 by Jana814

[kpmom]

This is a woman who thinks taking it upon herself to call to order a pizza is somehow usurping her husband's God given right to...order pizza, I guess?  She counted it a victory that she stopped herself from even reminding him to call.

This is not the kind of person who would leave Steve when he became more and more extreme.  Teri was right there with him.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

33 minutes ago, kpmom said:

This is a woman who thinks taking it upon herself to call to order a pizza is somehow usurping her husband's God given right to...order pizza, I guess?  She counted it a victory that she stopped herself from even reminding him to call.

This is not the kind of person who would leave Steve when he became more and more extreme.  Teri was right there with him.

I still maintain she wanted him to forget so he could look like a jerk.  There was something so passive aggressive about that story.

[MamaJunebug]

On 1/17/2022 at 7:08 PM, Tatar-tot said:

If that is the only way she can handle them then she should not be alone with the gang under any circumstances.

Pretty sure Anna and/or Mary were along for this exercise in fun, fun, fun. Somebody was acting as photojournalist, after all. 

[MamaJunebug]

On 1/17/2022 at 12:53 PM, HerNameIsBuffy said:

There is an aspect of this I admit I don't understand and that's her type of depression.  I've dealt with situational bouts after the death of my parents, my divorce, job loss etc. but not the kind that isn't directly related to a major life event knocking me on my ass.  Can her type of depression blind her to the harm she has done to her children and continues to advocate for her grandchildren and others? 

As a chronic depressive - like my mom before me and a child or two after me - I can say I never felt blinded to any neglect or mistreatment on my part. I felt terribly aware and guilty.  
But with that sort of depression, the overarching feeling is one of pointlessness.

In the unmedicated depths, there’s no more reason to cry out, nor even cry.  Because it’s all futile.

Vanity of vanities, all in us chin, as the writer wrote?  That’s where I was.

Nothing was gonna help. Nothing was gonna change. And even if it did change, at the end of our lives we’re all dead. 

What the FVCK was this low farce imposed upon us as “life?”  Who gave a damn?  

Again: what was the point? The point was, there IS no point.

We’ll all stumble along and fvck up royally and die. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That is  chronic, inborn depression as I knew it (and sometimes still know it). I don’t know if that’s what Teri’s has been.

But she had no apparent job skills (did she earn her college degree?). She had a hideously overbearing, controlling  spouse.  

Her greatest-generation parents doubtless feared for and ached for their daughter in her plight, but the old-timers didn’t advocate divorce. They were nearby in KS to be at least moral support with the kids.  

In that unsavory stew of a life, Teri’s unmedicated depression was out of her control.  
i feel for her, from that POV. 

Edited January 21, 2022 by MamaJunebug

[Bluebirdbluebell]

The Mom's Corner for this month is called "Trying To Cool A Hot Topic" and it's from February 8, 2021. 

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Teens and Cell Phones

This would be the hot topic.

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With the age for kids to get cell phones moving younger, we are alarmed about those ramifications. Families share with us heartbreaking stories about the negative, unexpected consequences of their children’s cell phones. These are particularly in the areas of time wasted on the phone, negative influences by others, and boy/girl relationships before the time is right for them. Once these addictions, texting, and social media relationships are established, pulling them back is at best, difficult, and at worst, impossible. 

I wonder who the Maxwells are hearing all this from or maybe they made it up.

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From our perspective as we evaluate these stories, the parents didn’t anticipate the potential problems, prepare for them, and communicate well with their children about them. Things were good in their home – solid relationships and children who were obedient. The phone was given as a practical tool but soon morphed into an engaging allurement that pulled the child’s heart into anything from many wasted hours to other untold evils.

Teens like to communicate with their friends. In other news, water is wet.  

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In the past, we were concerned about the influence of TV, movies, and videos games in conservative, Christian homes and shared warnings with you about that. Now an even greater danger is trolling for your children. 

Phones are a modern evil than television to be sure. It's 2022, you're only ten/twenty years behind the time.

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“A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished” (Proverbs 22:3). Is there any way to avoid your child falling into the evil clutches that can come with cell phones? We aren’t fully sure about that, but we think Proverbs encourages an attempt. Sometimes it seems hopeless, but if we were parents with children at an age to get a cell phone, we would sure try. Here are some thoughts about it.

Since the kids all left the house, they're finally ready to acknowledge they're parents of adult children. Mary has been an adult for seven years and she's their youngest.

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Need?

Does your child really NEED a phone? We remember the years with our children growing up and how they didn’t get driver’s licenses until they truly needed one. At that point, they were earning income to either buy their own car or pay their share of the insurance and car maintenance. While this wasn’t the norm for teens and driving, it sure protected our children in many ways. Just because everyone else has a phone does not mean it is the right or best choice for your child.

From reading the comments on the pandemic, not all Maxwell fans live like them. Many of their children go to school and may need to call parents for rides, information, etc.

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Plan

Think through the boundaries and parameters for your child having a phone and set them out clearly, even in writing. If you don’t want your child texting or communicating via the phone with friends of the opposite sex, let them know that up front. If there are apps you don’t want them to use, state that, or perhaps simply state what apps they can use. What about how much time can be spent on the phone? 

Again even in a homeschooling collective, kids may need to collaborate for group projections with people of the opposite sex. Or maybe they go to church. Plus a lot of your friends allow their kids to communicate with friends of the opposite sex so they get married young. I'm not sure marrying young is better, but not everyone agrees with you.

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Research and consider installing protection and accountability on your child’s phone. We like Accountable2you, and our adult children chose to use that while living in our home. However, it is accountability not protection. We tried several protection plans but couldn’t find one that was reliable and didn’t lock our children regularly from the Internet. Our children were young adults at this time and needed the internet for their livelihood. So we moved from protection on the phone to accountability. 

But now none of them live in your home. I hope the girls can chose not to have Accountable2you installed and not let you monitor their phones/computers. 

I will say we had the same problem in public schools with "protection" softwares. I'm old now, but when I was in school we were doing projects on the Titanic.  There were good sites we couldn't get into and at least one site dedicated to the movie that was allowed by the school's protection software.

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If you want to look at your child’s phone sometimes, agree on the password, and then look at the phone regularly, so they expect it. Even if you are not concerned about anything at the time, if you wait until you are, it will be hard for your child to turn his/her phone over to you for your perusal.

Do you also read their diary? I wouldn't do this. My parents didn't listen to my calls or read my emails. Their parents didn't listen to their phone calls or read their letters.

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Communication and Relationship

Ultimately what your child does on his/her phone grows out of your solid relationships and hopefully their desire to please the Lord. They will not want to follow your rules and counsel if they don’t respect you and your guidance. That’s part of a heart relationship with your children. 

Do you respect them? Respect is a two-way street and this all sounds like you don't trust or respect your own kids.

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Please dear sister, the potential evils are so big with teens and cell phones. Don’t think it will all be fine and then be blindsided when the unthinkable happens. Be proactive if you allow your teen to have cell phones. 

I think you do by communicating with them. By being honest and direct about how to use a phone and teaching them how to use their phones responsibly. 

[smittykins]

16 hours ago, Bluebirdbluebell said:

I will say we had the same problem in public schools with "protection" softwares. I'm old now, but when I was in school we were doing projects on the Titanic.  There were good sites we couldn't get into and at least one site dedicated to the movie that was allowed by the school's protection software.

At one point, the Internet filter used by my town’s library wouldn’t let me access the MLB website.

Major. League Baseball.

I found a backdoor way to get on it, and eventually, the settings were adjusted.

[PennySycamore]

Now, unless you keep your kids under lock and key. it can be downright dangerous for kids to NOT have a cell phone.  

[Howl]

On 1/18/2022 at 10:41 AM, Alisamer said:

She seems like the type who'd enjoy living in a small mountain town, shopping at the local co-op and farmer's market, and enjoying her own hobbies... like hiking. She'd be happy seeing the grandkids once in a while with their parents present, and prefer them once they were old enough to help her garden or go on hikes with her. She might volunteer somewhere, or foster cats, or something like that. 

Damn, that sounds good.  

Also, keeping a daughter at home until age 40 and blocking off all avenues to a larger life just seems...criminal. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

On 2/24/2022 at 9:24 PM, PennySycamore said:

Now, unless you keep your kids under lock and key. it can be downright dangerous for kids to NOT have a cell phone.  

I’m trying to decide the right age for my kids. I’m thinking the beginning of 6th grade. They are currently in 1st and 3rd.

[nvmbr02]

44 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I’m trying to decide the right age for my kids. I’m thinking the beginning of 6th grade. They are currently in 1st and 3rd.

For my older two we did Christmas of 5th grade, so they had it going into middle school. We started off with them not taking it to school because they didn’t need it in elementary school. They took a bus home and we were notified if they were going to be late, etc… then that summer they had a little more freedom with their phone. I think they did bring it to school the last week or two and started collecting friends’ numbers. We basically just started slow.  My youngest was a year younger than the older two. She was coming home alone and we didn’t have reliable internet service or a home phone. Most days one of her siblings was home when she got home, but sometimes they weren’t and she needed a a good reliable way to get into contact with me. We could have just gotten a cell phone to leave at the house as a “home phone” but at that point the rest of us all had phone so it was just easier to give it to her. 
 

Everyone’s situation is a bit different. But it seems like most kids are getting phones somewhere around 5th and 6th grade. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

9 minutes ago, nvmbr02 said:

For my older two we did Christmas of 5th grade, so they had it going into middle school. We started off with them not taking it to school because they didn’t need it in elementary school. They took a bus home and we were notified if they were going to be late, etc… then that summer they had a little more freedom with their phone. I think they did bring it to school the last week or two and started collecting friends’ numbers. We basically just started slow.  My youngest was a year younger than the older two. She was coming home alone and we didn’t have reliable internet service or a home phone. Most days one of her siblings was home when she got home, but sometimes they weren’t and she needed a a good reliable way to get into contact with me. We could have just gotten a cell phone to leave at the house as a “home phone” but at that point the rest of us all had phone so it was just easier to give it to her. 
 

Everyone’s situation is a bit different. But it seems like most kids are getting phones somewhere around 5th and 6th grade. 

My kids don’t go to middle school until 6th grade and that’s why I was thinking 6th grade. Their elementary school is like 2.5 blocks away. So they probably won’t need one while in elementary school.