Maxwell 52: Retired Vests, Retired Blog, and Retired Maxwells

[MomJeans]

12 hours ago, smittykins said:

What was their rationale for not wanting them to read about sports?  Too much f*n?

Sports are "addictive" and anything that could potentially pull you away from worshipping God is bad.  Also the danger of co-ed sports: Satan's Pathway. And sports will prevent men from becoming breadwinners.  

Basically, reading between the lines, something happened to Steve playing competitive sports, and he had to destroy that bit of happiness for his kids.  I know from family friends that the Maxhells were not anti-sports when they lived in Clearwater, FL. Steve's hatred didn't manifest until after they left Florida.

Here is a link to Steve on Sports.  Advice: pour a glass of wine first. Personally, I prefer my crazy with a pinot noir. 

https://articles.titus2.com/category/series/?tag=sports

 

[kpmom]

  So, did he lighten up, or did the Maxkids move somewhat away from Steve's beliefs on sports?

We've seen pictures of Mary and Anna at basketball games and tug of war contests at college.  The 5k Anna ran at college was timed and competitive.  The grandkids do Bible Bee, which is also competitive I believe.

Granted nobody is playing sports (Or are they?  We don't really know) but he even bitched about watching sports, playing competitive board games, and doing spelling bees (spelling bees!) back then. 

 

 

 

 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

37 minutes ago, kpmom said:

  So, did he lighten up, or did the Maxkids move somewhat away from Steve's beliefs on sports?

We've seen pictures of Mary and Anna at basketball games and tug of war contests at college.  The 5k Anna ran at college was timed and competitive.  The grandkids do Bible Bee, which is also competitive I believe.

Granted nobody is playing sports (Or are they?  We don't really know) but he even bitched about watching sports, playing competitive board games, and doing spelling bees (spelling bees!) back then. 

 

 

 

 

I didn't know he was opposed to all competition.  Board games?  Really?

Me thinks little past-Stevie didn't get enough participation trophies.

[MaryatHome]

On 2/8/2022 at 12:23 PM, ElizaB said:

I wonder how Bible classes are taught at their college. It seems that their Bible education was a lot of memorization and parroting their Dad's thoughts. I don't think they were ever allowed to think or interpret any of it for themselves. I ABC requires them to interpret text for themselves I would imagine that they would find this process hard as it is something that is completely knew. 

My sister married a man from Puerto Rico so her kids have been raised bilingual. My nephew was complaining once about Spanish Class in junior high and how he was doing poorly. I kind of laughed and was like, how is a seventh grade spanish class hard for you? You literally speak it. But he told me he knew a lot of "wrong" spanish- bad grammar and such- that his dad always spoke. He said he had some improper ways of speaking ingrained in his head and it was really hard to break these habits he had since he learned to talk. I wonder if Mary and Anna have some Bible "habits" engrained in them that are hard to break too. 

My daughter's (Catholic) high school had a sizeable cohort of native Spanish speakers.  They offered a multi-level "Spanish for native speakers" curriculum, because many spoke as your nephew, and couldn't effectively read or write in Spanish, as they had spent their foundational education in English-speaking schools.  It was so interesting to me, and I thought so helpful to those kids to round out their education.

[MomJeans]

9 hours ago, kpmom said:

  So, did he lighten up, or did the Maxkids move somewhat away from Steve's beliefs on sports?

We've seen pictures of Mary and Anna at basketball games and tug of war contests at college.  The 5k Anna ran at college was timed and competitive.  The grandkids do Bible Bee, which is also competitive I believe.

Granted nobody is playing sports (Or are they?  We don't really know) but he even bitched about watching sports, playing competitive board games, and doing spelling bees (spelling bees!) back then. 

Personally, and this is just my opinion, I doubt Steve has loosened up about something that he preached so loudly and proudly.  This was his special message on behalf of God, thank you very much, that every other Christian had completely wrong because they weren't as godly and smart as Steve.

I think Bible Bee was an example of how he was slowly losing his grip of control over the married sons.  

I think Steve is sitting in his home office stewing about the daughters attending sporting events at college.  I personally do not think he is onboard with his daughter's escape whatsoever, and I'm kind of surprised we haven't gotten a Dad's Corner preaching that fathers can only do so much, and that a godly father can at least rest easy that he knows he is going to heaven, even if his kids lose their ways.

[Howl]

5 hours ago, MomJeans said:

and that a godly father can at least rest easy that he knows he is going to heaven, even if his kids lose their ways.

I'm sitting here drinking my tea at 6:08 am and almost laughed out loud, because that in particular and all of your post is SO Stevehovah. 

I have to wonder if Steve has some compulsive thinking patterns, maybe on the dark side, and he has to desperately corral those thoughts on a daily basis lest they bubble up and take hold. 

Or he has perfectly normal thoughts but is so neurotic he's terrified of bad thoughts and has to keep everything under control.  I'm just remembering how undone he was (and possibly still is) from glimpsing a woman's cleavage.  That's not normal. 

Will we ever find out how the Maxwell women (they aren't girls anymore!) gained their agency?  It may forever be another of several enduring fj mysteries, like

• Where is Doug Phillips? 
• The Arndt Perpetual "Safe at Home" Bachelors! 
• Erika Shupe: Shorts & Public School! 
• Will a Botkinetti Ever Marry? 

[theologygeek]

On 2/9/2022 at 4:03 PM, kpmom said:

  So, did he lighten up, or did the Maxkids move somewhat away from Steve's beliefs on sports?

We've seen pictures of Mary and Anna at basketball games and tug of war contests at college.  The 5k Anna ran at college was timed and competitive.  The grandkids do Bible Bee, which is also competitive I believe.

Granted nobody is playing sports (Or are they?  We don't really know) but he even bitched about watching sports, playing competitive board games, and doing spelling bees (spelling bees!) back then. 

This is why he's not going to do the blog any more.  Because his kids walked away from things that he has said on his website.  He looks like a fool now, and if he had the blog with comments, people would call him on it.  

[kmachete14]

weren't most fundies anti- "organized sports"? The Duggars weren't allowed sports except broomball which was on their own property and not public. The Bates didn't do sports, except the boys tried a Christian basketball camp when they were older (once the Bates "lightened up") and weren't that good because of not growing up really playing. I think it was an IBLP thing originally not to make sports an idol and not have a TV. One of the reasons I think Dave Rodriguez never fully committed to IBLP back in the day -- he had to watch football on TV. Steve maybe copied this popular idea but couldn't give it up when everyone else did. 

[Coconut Flan]

Broom ball was at a public recreation facility.  However, the Duggars and maybe it was the Holts basically took over that time slot.

[MomJeans]

I think most fundies are anti-team and organized sports, like Little League, because they don't want their kids to have any outside influences and think for themselves.  I believe ILBP was anti-sport for this reason.  (And of course, for girls, no sport was modest enough).

But some fundies appear to have a real "manly man" focus on boys like the Bontragers, and family football is their way of signaling their manliness.  

To my knowledge, Steve is the only one who has ever publicly boldly claimed that all forms of sport and competition are banned by the bible.  My cousins are very much still fundies, and Maxwell fans, but they do Bible Bee, board games, & tennis. 

[Maggie Mae]

I think most mega-family fundamentalist Christians can't afford sports, so the IBLP banning them in the guise of "it takes kids away from the family" was welcomed and not something that they pushed back on. Even if the sports  are free or very cheap, through rec leagues or schools, it's still expensive and time consuming to manage even 3 kids schedules, much less 15. Dropping off a teen at band practice, another teen at tennis, the twins at soccer, another kid at dance, buying shoes and uniforms and player fees, taking a kid to the ENT when they break their nose at softball, taking another kid to the ER when they break a collarbone skiing or skateboarding, it could go on and on and on.  Could you imagine poor Terri trying to get John to his guitar lessons, Jesse to football, Sarah & Mary to the rec center for writing groups and art classes, all while Steve can't even be bothered to pick up a pizza and a 2 liter of pepsi or iron his own underwear? 

I think they also fear strangers, and wouldn't be OK with just dropping off one kid at soccer with a non-Christian Adult.  And there are just too many kids of varying ages to have them all do the same activity. 

[ElizaB]

I think the no sports thing was a really convenient thing for these people with tons of kids to latch onto. I only have 3 kids and they each are in a fairly reasonable number of sports/activities. It takes a lot of time (and money) to make their activities work. When you have 8+ kids it would be a big commitment to get those kids to all their activities. As long as Jesus doesn't want them to do it they don't have to blame themselves for not letting them do things. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

26 minutes ago, ElizaB said:

I think the no sports thing was a really convenient thing for these people with tons of kids to latch onto. I only have 3 kids and they each are in a fairly reasonable number of sports/activities. It takes a lot of time (and money) to make their activities work. When you have 8+ kids it would be a big commitment to get those kids to all their activities. As long as Jesus doesn't want them to do it they don't have to blame themselves for not letting them do things. 

I agree with this and the isolation aspect as well. Their kids being in any mainstream activities would not only take time and money they didn’t have, but also expose them to non-fundies. Music lessons are usually not in groups, so that was allowed. The Max grandchildren didn’t even get to take swimming lessons at a public pool. They had to have lessons from grandma in the neighbor’s pool. 

[MomJeans]

Re Terri shuttling the kids to activities.

Here's the crazy thing.  Terri used to do that!  When they lived in Clearwater the kids* did Little League (t-ball and baseball, I believe).  (* I don't know if Sarah did.  I know the boys did).  And they did do Youth Group (it was called something else, but it was a kids thing at church).  My oldest cousin had boys the same age and was in their circle.  My cousin is still fundie, but she was surprised years later to learn that the kids no longer did any outside activities.  The church even did trips to the minor league baseball games.   My cousin is a Maxwell fan, but even she thinks they went too far in withdrawing from outside influences.  And she was really shocked because she believed that both Terri and Steve really liked baseball.  S

What's also odd to me is that Terri has said on the blog how great life was in Clearwater. So whatever caused this massive directionally change, it manifested after they left. 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

4 minutes ago, MomJeans said:

Re Terri shuttling the kids to activities.

Here's the crazy thing.  Terri used to do that!  When they lived in Clearwater the kids* did Little League (t-ball and baseball, I believe).  (* I don't know if Sarah did.  I know the boys did).  And they did do Youth Group (it was called something else, but it was a kids thing at church).  My oldest cousin had boys the same age and was in their circle.  My cousin is still fundie, but she was surprised years later to learn that the kids no longer did any outside activities.  The church even did trips to the minor league baseball games.   My cousin is a Maxwell fan, but even she thinks they went too far in withdrawing from outside influences.  And she was really shocked because she believed that both Terri and Steve really liked baseball.  S

What's also odd to me is that Terri has said on the blog how great life was in Clearwater. So whatever caused this massive directionally change, it manifested after they left. 

Bolding mine - this really struck me.  I don't recall reading anything where Teri made a positive and pleasant statement about any part of their life without drowning it in pious vinegar.  

If the catalyst for all this really was Steve's inability to work with women as people rather than sex objects from which he needed to be isolated that is some powerful lust he had going on.  Did they ever definitely state what it was that made him lose his mind and put everyone in lockdown?

[kpmom]

40 minutes ago, MomJeans said:

What's also odd to me is that Terri has said on the blog how great life was in Clearwater. So whatever caused this massive directionally change, it manifested after they left. 

Did they only have the older 3 kids at that time?  Maybe that's when Steve got his vasectomy and she didn't have to worry about unplanned pregnancies.  That would have been a load off her mind.

[fundiewatch]

When they disenrolled they boys from Christian school Teri wrote a letter to her parents that IIRC highlighted that it would give them more time for sports and that she was already having to do a lot of extra work to bring Nathan up to speed with reading at home. She felt homeschooling would be less work in some ways. Who knows what took sports so completely from them. He even had a time when he really talked about limiting board games because they are too competitive. Later on, they went full on into Catan and other games, and Sarah highlighted games a lot because to her it made them very relatable. (Game night! Umm sure. That’s you and your sisters at a BNB.) Coffee is another one that Steve has been inconsistent on. He was VERY snarky in the comments one time when someone kindly said something about the caffeine and he replied “no problem. Decaf” and it was eventually very clear the kidults were in no way not drinking caffeine. And as time went on, coffee was featured more and more because it’s the most relatable thing Sarah had and she knew it. I think the problem; at the core, is that the stick up Steve’s butt likely has a stick up IT’S butt, based on the man’s rigidity. And because of this, those Maxwell women are a new trinity of female empowerment somehow. 😆 

In the meantime, I am salty as hell that the only updates that felt so personal to me, so emotional and raw, Anna Marie’s, are now cut off. She writes beautifully and I felt that they had some really beautiful ministry moments there. But Steve can’t change. 

[MamaJunebug]

Anna’s hair has layers! And she and Mary both may have shaped their brows! And Mart might have a smidge if eyeshadow?

 

But mostly: They look genuinely happy! Genuine smiles!

 

i couldn’t be more tickled for them.  

[smittykins]

20 hours ago, MomJeans said:

I think most fundies are anti-team and organized sports, like Little League, because they don't want their kids to have any outside influences and think for themselves.  I believe ILBP was anti-sport for this reason.  (And of course, for girls, no sport was modest enough).

 

I’ve also read of some churches discouraging organized sports because you might have a practice or a game on Sunday mornings/whenever their midweek service is(usually Wednesday night), when you’re supposed to have your butt in the pew.  Also, following a pro/college team or having a favorite athlete is idolatry.

Quote

Will we ever find out how the Maxwell women (they aren't girls anymore!) gained their agency?  It may forever be another of several enduring fj mysteries, like

Where is Doug Phillips? 

The Arndt Perpetual "Safe at Home" Bachelors! 

Erika Shupe: Shorts & Public School! 

Will a Botkinetti Ever Marry? 

And the biggest mystery of all:

How do you cut lettuce with a pizza wheel?

[Cults-r-us]

11 hours ago, MamaJunebug said:

Anna’s hair has layers! And she and Mary both may have shaped their brows! And Mart might have a smidge if eyeshadow?

 

But mostly: They look genuinely happy! Genuine smiles!

 

i couldn’t be more tickled for them.  

Sarah needs to write a book entitled, "The Moody Women Escape!"

[MamaJunebug]

18 minutes ago, Cults-r-us said:

Sarah needs to write a book entitled, "The Moody Women Escape!"

Just to be consistent with the previous titles in the series, pick one (or submit your own):

”Independence….

”Escape…

”Rescued …

”Free At Last!…

…..From The Moodys!”

What I’m wondering now is, is there a Moody Blues song to go with the Maxwell Maidens’ Exodus?  @thoughtful? Anybody? 

[church_of_dog]

9 minutes ago, MamaJunebug said:

Just to be consistent with the previous titles in the series, pick one (or submit your own):

”Independence….

”Escape…

”Rescued …

”Free At Last!…

…..From The Moodys!”

What I’m wondering now is, is there a Moody Blues song to go with the Maxwell Maidens’ Exodus?  @thoughtful? Anybody? 

A quick google (I only knew a few songs myself) tells me they have one titled "Go Now."   Works for me!

[Cults-r-us]

9 hours ago, MamaJunebug said:

Just to be consistent with the previous titles in the series, pick one (or submit your own):

”Independence….

”Escape…

”Rescued …

”Free At Last!…

…..From The Moodys!”

What I’m wondering now is, is there a Moody Blues song to go with the Maxwell Maidens’ Exodus?  @thoughtful? Anybody? 

How about new titles: The Moodies Time Travel to 1964 and Discover Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll?

[theologygeek]

Here's one for you.  Abby is taking a course on children's ministries.  Click on replies.  They already brainwashed the kid into criticizing the Catholics.  I wish people who were ignorant about Catholic doctrine would refrain from teaching their kids things that aren't true.  https://www.cefcmi.com/members/mrsmax10gmail-com/forums/  

[anjulibai]

She's only 13! How can she be involved in this?