Maxwell 56: Mary Found Freedom to Get Engaged

[SPHASH]

I just wonder what the brothers and Max daughters in law think of all this, moving out before marriage, meeting a spouse online or at school and not at a Dog and Pony Show, going to college, having a brother in law who works for the feds and played sports all of which they were banned from doing.  Is there any resentment?  

Edited March 16, 2023 by SPHASH

[JermajestyDuggar]

29 minutes ago, SPHASH said:

I just wonder what the brothers and Max daughters in law think of all this, moving out before marriage, meeting a spouse online or at school and not at a Dog and Pony Show, going to college, having a brother in law who works for the feds and played sports all of which they were banned from doing.  Is there any resentment?  

It probably depends on the brother. I could see the non reversal brothers being fine with it. They seem to really like their lives. Chris and Nathan may still be living really close but they’ve had a lot of help because of it. So they shouldn’t resent it since their sisters were the ones providing them lots of much needed childcare over the years. 

[hoipolloi]

2 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Chris and Nathan may still be living really close but they’ve had a lot of help because of it. So they shouldn’t resent it since their sisters were the ones providing them lots of much needed childcare over the years. 

Re: bolded. Exactly this, like that sad photo posted above, from March 2019, showing the grandchildren being led along for the "aunties' playtime."

Those boys owe their sisters a ton - imagine if something like years of back wages were in the mix. I hope that they have done all in their power to help their sisters to attain better lives and to support them in those better lives.

Edited March 16, 2023 by hoipolloi
Clarity

[theologygeek]

8 hours ago, Red Hair, Black Dress said:

I cannot imagine that any of Chelsy's advice and actions made Stevehovah happy.  I think he blew a gasket and nearly had a stroke.  Especially this:

How very very dare Chelsy disagree with him, his rules, his control of his daughters' every thought, move and breath.  How dare she introduce her friend to Sarah who encouraged her to go for it with online dating.  This is absolutely not what Stevehovah God commands and demands.

Stevehovah alone know what God commands/demands, because God agrees with what Stevehovah commands/demands. God and Stevehovah's rules are exactly the same. 

Isn't it neat-o peachy keen how that worked out ........ for Stevehovah that is.

Steve was never up against anyone before.  But then things changed.  There are two preachy fathers (Bontrager and Anna Craig's father) who travel around the country spreading their version of the Word, and another has a husband who is a deacon.  Steve got lucky with Nathan and Christopher because their wives didn't come from the traveling preachy types.  Then came Chelsy, who it seems like the entire family has type A personalities.  The Maxwell offspring saw other people who were confident in what they believed, and it was different from their father's beliefs.  Look at the way Chelsy worded that post about online dating.  She has that "I am firm about this and don't give a shit what anyone else says" way about her.  The Maxwells never had that before.  

[SPHASH]

6 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

It probably depends on the brother. I could see the non reversal brothers being fine with it. They seem to really like their lives. Chris and Nathan may still be living really close but they’ve had a lot of help because of it. So they shouldn’t resent it since their sisters were the ones providing them lots of much needed childcare over the years. 

They definitely shouldn't resent but I can't help thinking that they may compare how they were raised compared to Korey.  Nathan took a look a Korey and thought to himself "He is a Youth Pastor, got to play football and Dad made us quit Little League" or Chris might be thinking "Korey got to pick a career and my Dad wouldn't let me be an EMT' Joe might be thinking "Korey got to go to college and I couldn't" Jesse might be thinking "Korey took a mortgage and I had to save every penny before I could buy a house" and John "Korey got to move out before he got married and I wasn't allowed to".

Edited March 17, 2023 by SPHASH

[theologygeek]

This is interesting.  Christopher got a linkedin.  He started his own business.  Less mouths for Joseph to feed because he seems to take on the siblings who can't get a job anywhere else.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-maxwell-a59603240?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F  He worked for two brothers so far.  It's sad that he never found his own way or did what he dreamed of doing.  

Managing Owner

FOUR POINT ELEVEN, LLC

Jul 2022 - Present9 months

SwiftOtter, Inc.

5 years 7 months

Quality Assurance Specialist

Mar 2022 - Jul 20225 months

Digital Project Manager

Jan 2017 - Mar 20225 years 3 months

Quality Assurance Specialist

Jan 2017 - Aug 20181 year 8 months

Communication Concepts, Inc.

19 years 5 months

[SPHASH]

Christopher a Motivational Speaker and Youth Mentor? Lol.

Edited March 17, 2023 by SPHASH

[theologygeek]

39 minutes ago, SPHASH said:

Christopher a Motivational Speaker and Youth Mentor? Lol.

I got a chuckle out of that one too lol  

[Bluebirdbluebell]

1 hour ago, theologygeek said:

This is interesting.  Christopher got a linkedin.  He started his own business.  Less mouths for Joseph to feed because he seems to take on the siblings who can't get a job anywhere else.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-maxwell-a59603240?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F  He worked for two brothers so far.  It's sad that he never found his own way or did what he dreamed of doing.  

Thank you for sharing the linkedin profile.

Joseph's business seems to be booming, and he has non-Maxwell employees. I doubt it was a hardship to have his brother on the Swift Otter team.  

Christopher also expanded his photography business to photographing things other than weddings. Most notably he photographes houses for realtors and "works excusively right now with realtor John Maxwell". I don't remember if I knew John was a realtor. John seems like the brother who needs a job the most, so hopefully real estate works out for him. 

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

I wonder if John will work only with buyers who pay cash?  After all that's Stevehovah Dogma.

Real estate agents have to work with banks/ lenders/ down payments/ earnest money/ alternative financing/ FHA/ etc, etc. I can easily imagine John and (and Stevehovah) smugly judging all those people who get mortgages as sinful.

I wonder if Kory bought his new house for cash?  Stevehovah would be smugly judging him if he didn't.

[Alisamer]

1 hour ago, Bluebirdbluebell said:

Christopher also expanded his photography business to photographing things other than weddings. Most notably he photographes houses for realtors and "works excusively right now with realtor John Maxwell". I don't remember if I knew John was a realtor. John seems like the brother who needs a job the most, so hopefully real estate works out for him. 

I hope his real estate photography is better than his wedding photography, but based on what I've seen realtors publish anything would be a step up from the realtor hanging out the car window with their phone to get the exterior photos.

Christopher, on the odd chance you see this - turn on all the lights! Every light in the house. If there's a gas fireplace, light it. And crouch down slightly, don't shoot from up high like a security camera. (source: used to work for a luxury real estate auction company)

13 minutes ago, Red Hair, Black Dress said:

Stevehovah would be smugly judging him if he didn't.

Steve smugly judges everyone everywhere for everything. 

[theologygeek]

2 hours ago, Bluebirdbluebell said:

Joseph's business seems to be booming, and he has non-Maxwell employees. I doubt it was a hardship to have his brother on the Swift Otter team.  

I didn't say it was a hardship.  It was sarcasm because Joseph has/had Jesse, Christopher, Anna, and Sarah working for him.  Nathan has had Sarah, Christopher, and Anna working for him.  Most of them went from working for their father to moving around working for their siblings.  Mary and Anna were the only two with enough sense to realize that their lives were at a dead end.  

[Bethy]

On 3/15/2023 at 6:19 PM, Coconut Flan said:

COVID.  When the pandemic began visitation at the elder care facitilies was stopped or severely limited.  The Maxwells wouldn't have been allowed to go in as a group and gather residents for services.  

Partly true. They posted on the blog in March of 2020 to say they'd received a call that their elderly apartments were shutting down all outside activities, and at the time it was supposed to be until April but the Maxwells expected it would be extended. That's the post where they said they'd been attending a regular church on Sunday evenings and would start attending there for Sunday mornings as well. What they never elaborated on (and there's nothing about it in the comments) is what caused them to go there in the first place. If I had to guess, I'd say that once their kids all reached adulthood, they didn't have to worry about those pesky children's/teen's ministries stealing their hearts (isn't that the whole punchline of Keeping Our Children's Hearts?) and it was "safe" for them to attend some church services as a family. Mary had been out of high school for probably five years at the point covid came along, so maybe they'd been there for a while. Or maybe Steve was weary of doing nursing home church but didn't know how to pull the plug, but wanted that second option lined up just in case? Either way, the fact remains that they were established, at least tangentially, at a regular church before the nursing home kicked them out for covid.

Side note: in the post where they announce that the nursing home church is kaput, there's a picture of all of the cousins singing, and Sarah is at the piano. I knew I'd seen her pictured at the piano in the retirement home but couldn't remember where and wasn't about to comb through hundreds of blog posts trying to find it.

On 3/16/2023 at 2:43 PM, SPHASH said:

I just wonder what the brothers and Max daughters in law think of all this, moving out before marriage, meeting a spouse online or at school and not at a Dog and Pony Show, going to college, having a brother in law who works for the feds and played sports all of which they were banned from doing.  Is there any resentment?  

I agree with @JermajestyDuggar that it probably depends on the brother. However I think all of them are probably breathing a sigh of relief that all three sisters are likely going to be lined up with either a husband, a job, or both - since their care and feeding would probably have fallen to their brothers upon Steve and Teri's passing.

[kpmom]

In that announcement where they said they were returning to a regular church, didn’t Teri say something about Steve had wanted to end the elderly church and return to regular church for awhile and Covid provided that opportunity?

That was thoughtful of God to create a worldwide pandemic so the Maxwell’s could get out of the elderly church, wasn’t it? 🙄

[Bethy]

30 minutes ago, kpmom said:

In that announcement where they said they were returning to a regular church, didn’t Teri say something about Steve had wanted to end the elderly church and return to regular church for awhile and Covid provided that opportunity?

That was thoughtful of God to create a worldwide pandemic so the Maxwell’s could get out of the elderly church, wasn’t it? 🙄

It kind of rings a bell, but if she did, it's not on the blog as it currently exists. I can't find an earlier version of that post on Wayback Machine. It does sound like the kind of thing they may have said, and then scrubbed it when someone they respect tipped them off that it sounded sort of crass to insinuate that God struck the world with a pandemic that killed close to seven million people just so they could wiggle out of an obligation they created for themselves.

[JermajestyDuggar]

Jonathan Staddon does a very good job at Real Estate Photography. I personally wish all agents would hire professional photographers because the online listing is extremely important these days. No one will go see a house unless they’ve already seen pictures online. And if the pictures are bad, I can guarantee that will at least knock a few people out of stepping foot inside the home. The better it presents online the more foot traffic you’ll get. And the more foot traffic you get, the more likely you are to sell the house sooner. I don’t think Chris Maxwell is a people person. And that’s partly why he sucks at photographing people. But you don’t have to be a people person to photograph homes well. 

[ElizaB]

I honestly don’t think Anna and Mary going to college came with that much drama because the choice was framed in a certain way. The girls were not leaving home to become more worldly- they were doing it to serve God better. Anna and Mary had a clear cut goal - the missions. Their pastor told them they would be better able to serve with college classes. This was a very goal oriented move with the end goal being serving God. They first took online classes - which i would not be surprised if Steve heavily supervised. Once Steve saw that the classes were acceptable I bet they discussed it at length before going. 
now, I’m not saying that Steve isn’t a controlling ass- on the contrary. He is so  controlling i am not sure how the girls would have been able to make these changes on their own without him being somewhat on board. Now, since leaving they may have made more drastic unapproved changes, but initially I believe he was on board. 

[SassyPants]

2 minutes ago, ElizaB said:

I honestly don’t think Anna and Mary going to college came with that much drama because the choice was framed in a certain way. The girls were not leaving home to become more worldly- they were doing it to serve God better. Anna and Mary had a clear cut goal - the missions. Their pastor told them they would be better able to serve with college classes. This was a very goal oriented move with the end goal being serving God. They first took online classes - which i would not be surprised if Steve heavily supervised. Once Steve saw that the classes were acceptable I bet they discussed it at length before going. 
now, I’m not saying that Steve isn’t a controlling ass- on the contrary. He is so  controlling i am not sure how the girls would have been able to make these changes on their own without him being somewhat on board. Now, since leaving they may have made more drastic unapproved changes, but initially I believe he was on board. 

I’m not sure how the girls presented justification for the tuition costs to Steve. He seems to be very frugal. Without throwing their brothers under the bus (Steve had to have been involved in financing all those first homes), how could the girls have convinced Steve to spend the money for private school tuition? I wonder how much Steve is actually paying? 

[Bethy]

1 hour ago, SassyPants said:

I’m not sure how the girls presented justification for the tuition costs to Steve. He seems to be very frugal. Without throwing their brothers under the bus (Steve had to have been involved in financing all those first homes), how could the girls have convinced Steve to spend the money for private school tuition? I wonder how much Steve is actually paying? 

Impossible to know what he's paying or not paying. Tuition alone is $14K a year for each of them. If they did really well in their online year, they probably earned some academic scholarships. And if they've switched their residency to WV, they might be getting more in the form of state grants. (That was a consideration when I was in college a quarter of a century ago. Maybe your residency doesn't impact state aid anymore.)

If they were being paid fairly for their labor on the dog and pony show circuit and for the work they did for their brothers' businesses, they might have a nice nest egg for college, and they're pretty self-motivated so they may have been able to study on their own and get CLEP credit to save themselves some gen ed courses. Maybe Joe and Jesse paid them some of what they got when they sold the homes their sisters had done so much work on. It's less clear than it might be for Sarah, who likely earned a lot over the years with the Moody books.

Edited March 18, 2023 by Bethy

[browngrl]

On 3/14/2023 at 11:11 PM, Baba O'Riley said:

I just hope that that at least one of them writes a book about it

I'm very proud of my frugality and I almost never buy anything unless there is a sale or deal....but I'd buy that book at full price the day it came out. 😀

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

I believe, based on a hunch, that none of the girls saw any of the money for any work they did and that Sarah did not receive a dime from the Moody books.

I think there are 3 possible scenarios:
1.  They worked for their brothers for free 
2.   Stevehovah took their paychecks to "save" for them
3.   Sarah's Moody earnings went to and were controlled by Steve. 

I think Steve "handled" all their money for them - i.e., took it and did who knows what with it.  I seriously doubt he invested it for his daughters.  After all they are girls and girls don't handle money - that's manly man stuff. Stevehovah controlled everything in his children's lives,. 'm positive that extended to money.

I don't know how Sarah paid for her new car -- perhaps money from Gigi. Obviously she was able to rent her own place and cover her living expenses. Perhaps once she left home she was about to receive/ control her earnings.

[Bastet]

28 minutes ago, Red Hair, Black Dress said:

I believe, based on a hunch, that none of the girls saw any of the money for any work they did and that Sarah did not receive a dime from the Moody books.

I think there are 3 possible scenarios:
1.  They worked for their brothers for free 
2.   Stevehovah took their paychecks to "save" for them
3.   Sarah's Moody earnings went to and were controlled by Steve. 

I think Steve "handled" all their money for them - i.e., took it and did who knows what with it.  I seriously doubt he invested it for his daughters.  After all they are girls and girls don't handle money - that's manly man stuff. Stevehovah controlled everything in his children's lives,. 'm positive that extended to money.

I don't know how Sarah paid for her new car -- perhaps money from Gigi. Obviously she was able to rent her own place and cover her living expenses. Perhaps once she left home she was about to receive/ control her earnings.

I hope you are wrong. I like to at least imagine that in the end the Maxwell women got serious money for their silence.  I also like to imagine that the threat of their speaking out about life in casa Maxwell was entirely tacit, completely implied, and the cold vagueness scared the shit out of Steve. No evidence at all for this, of course. 

Edited March 18, 2023 by Bastet

[SPHASH]

If Steve "saved" the girls paychecks for them I hope he at least put it in a 401K or IRA account.

[MamaJunebug]

If they’re attending a non-public-funded “private” college in WVA, would residency make a difference in tuition rates or aid? 
 

i gotta tell y’all, as much as FJ has meant to me in the years since there were only 13 Duggar kids, this topic is the only thing I have the heart & stomach for, anymore.  Everything else, from Jillpm RODRIGUES to the festering boils called Theobros as discussed over on the “main” page? My old brain can’t handle it. 
 

I’m super glad the Maxgals made their exits.  Please, Anna, whether you marry or not, do NOT go back to Kansas.  Whatever you do. ❤️ 
 

 

Edited March 19, 2023 by MamaJunebug

[molecule]

1 hour ago, MamaJunebug said:

If they’re attending a non-public-funded “private” college in WVA, would residency make a difference in tuition rates or aid? 
 

 

I've worked in both public and private colleges, wnd private colleges are much more affordable than most people think. Because the prices are high, many students are eligible for substantial grants in the financial aid process, and there are quite a few scholarships. 

Also I've wondered if the pastor at their church went to some financially blessed members of the congregation to fund the girls' college dreams.