Why I Am Glad I Am Not Quiverful

[debrand]

If I was a fundie, a dream that my husband have shared would never come true. Our entire marriage, we have wanted a small homestead. Recently, we've been discussing that once the children leave home, that dream might be within reach.

 

We are aiming that in a couple of years we will be out of debt. At that point, we hope to purchase a few acres close to the mountains. Our goal is to build a very small log cabin. We don't want to use a kit because they are expensive. Instead, we hope to build a butt and pass log cabin. As I said, this will be a small house. Our goal is to not be completly off grid but to use as much solar and wind power as is possible.

 

Building a small house will mean that we can actually build more than one. So our kids can stay in their own small cabins when they visit.

 

We want a dexter cow, a garden and a few chickens.

 

If we were quiverful, there is no way we could approach our dream because I would have young children. However, now we are getting to the point where our dreams might come true. That is exciting!

 

Maybe some of you can explain dreams and goals that you have that wouldn't be possible if you were quiverful.

[JesusFightClub]

Socialist revolution! It is hard to man (woman) the barricades with 19 kids. ;)

Nearly everything on my new year's resolution list would suffer an epic fail if I had even one kid, never mind a quiverfull. I know enough about kids to know they are a full time job. Strongly admire mums and dads but it is not my skill.

[Avalondaughter]

That sounds so wonderful. I'm child-free, but DH and I are pretty caught up in the rat race right now. We still have a mortgage on our suburban NY condo, he needs to keep his crazy stressful job to pay for it, needing to commute to Manhattan every day. One day we want to step off the hamster wheel, move to the country, and have a simpler life. I'm not sure we'll homestead it, but I imagine a garden that grows our food and we keep our horses at home.

[ilovetchotchkes]

If I was a fundie, a dream that my husband have shared would never come true. Our entire marriage, we have wanted a small homestead. Recently, we've been discussing that once the children leave home, that dream might be within reach.

We are aiming that in a couple of years we will be out of debt. At that point, we hope to purchase a few acres close to the mountains. Our goal is to build a very small log cabin. We don't want to use a kit because they are expensive. Instead, we hope to build a butt and pass log cabin. As I said, this will be a small house. Our goal is to not be completly off grid but to use as much solar and wind power as is possible.

Building a small house will mean that we can actually build more than one. So our kids can stay in their own small cabins when they visit.

We want a dexter cow, a garden and a few chickens.

If we were quiverful, there is no way we could approach our dream because I would have young children. However, now we are getting to the point where our dreams might come true. That is exciting!

Maybe some of you can explain dreams and goals that you have that wouldn't be possible if you were quiverful.

This is similar to our retirement dream as well, only ours involves an old victorian farmhouse :)

We're thinking 2 -3 kids MAX. If we were QF.. Geez, i'm only 30, I could have another 10-15 more kids! :shock:

[Jenesis Jexodus]

I don't like to buy used and save the difference. Then there's the part about obeying crazy abusive twisted men. I also wouldn't be able to tolerate being forced to bear tons of children. As a mother I would never expect my older children to assume the responsibility of taking care of my younger children. I also think that a lot of the QF ignore and turn a blind eye to abuses that go on in their homes because dealing with it would interrupt their system and would bring light to the fact that they are grossly dysfunctional.

[wallfly]

I like getting to know my children as individuals and helping them foster their natural talents. We can afford activities for them. I often wonder about the noise level in the homes with a lot of kids, I like a quiet peaceful home. I'm selfish too. Obviously.

Eta: LL doesn't make it look fun at all!

[koolmom]

I would have liked to have more kids than my one son and daughter, but I guess the Lord blessed me with one of each, so I could get the max effects of both genders and enjoy them (even in the right order), which I did. I wound up a single mom after my second baby (daughter), so having more would have necessitated me to find that elusive partner who would have wanted to have taken on the challenge of a third (that is, if HE didn't have any himself!) kid to the mix.

I obviously am glad I'm not because it would have been necessary for me to have a spouse who would have been able to meet said challenge, and these days they're hard to come by. I can't even imagine myself with three kids, never mind more...when you have one or two rare gems, you savor them more -- that's what I always say...

[lovefromgirl]

Socialist revolution! It is hard to man (woman) the barricades with 19 kids. ;)

Nearly everything on my new year's resolution list would suffer an epic fail if I had even one kid, never mind a quiverfull. I know enough about kids to know they are a full time job. Strongly admire mums and dads but it is not my skill.

Hey, OTOH, that's 19 kids for the revolution! They would so help you with the barricade. I know I would've, as a kid. (Nowadays, I am too creaky and need my meds at night, so no possible arrests for moi.)

Not my skill either, don't worry. I doubt it's the skill of many of these women we see--how many of them seem to actually love their quivers?

[liltwinstar]

Well, for one, I wouldn't enjoy marriage if all I was doing was trying to follow orders. My husband is awesome, but he's not a patriarch, and if I tried to turn him into one, he'd be miserable and I'd be miserable. So, having a happy marriage is possible for me, and it wouldn't be in the QF world.

I'm also not a parent yet, but I look forward to being one, when I'm/we're ready. Hopefully, at least most of the time, I'll be able to enjoy the stages of my children's lives without trying to rush them along so I can either get to the next baybeeeeee or have a "helper" becuase I'm so stressed.

I'm glad that I can have retirment goals - granted, I probably don't save as much as I "should" but I'd wager it's a good bit more than QF families are able to save. The thought of spending my 80s and 90s eating cat food or whatever is terrifying, so I'm glad that our dual income allows us/me to save for that future.

Finally, I'm so thankful that I'm 31 years old and still in excellent health. If I'd been popping out babies regularly from the age of 20, I could easily have 10-11 children right now, and I'd probably be totally exhausted and overwhelmed. Becuase I don't feel like I have to fit a particular mold, I'm free to express my opinions and preferences, and feel like an active participant/creator of my own life, rather than passively "allowing" things to happen or "accepting" crap. I'm 100% sure that this has a positive impact on my mental and physical health. When I was in fundie world, I was plagued with headaches regularly, had "blood sugar" issues, etc. Now that I'm free, I feel awesome 95% of the time - I even recover from colds and things much faster. Not to say that all disease is attributable to lifestyle, but for me personally, my physical health improved as I was able to take control of my life. If I were a submissive, QF wife, I doubt that would be the case.

[roddma]

I wonder if QF ever think about retirement and empty nest syndrome. This doesn't apply to just QF either. I read all the time people are having their 8th kid and it eludes me why anyone wants more than 4 kids max. I guess if you stay as debt free as the Duggars claim to be it is possible to support them and what does JB have to retire from anyway? But still, don't their dreams extend beyond QF? The answer is obvious-no.

[Feberin]

My son is almost two and just now I'm pregnant again. I'm glad he didn't have to share his babyhood with a younger sibling but I was able to focus on him.

[eohiken]

Can I persuade you to try goats instead of the dexter? Goats are adorable and friendly and you can feed three or four of them for the same as the cow. And their poop is cleaner and not smelly.

I totally get the sentiment, when my youngest was a babe in arms, I longed to get out in the garden and dig (he was born in the spring and very colicky). I realized right then and there that ending the baby making business had a significant upside.

[Rosa]

One of my dreams is having a happy, stable, successful kid, and trying to make that happen for my kid is nearly a fulltime job. There's no way I could do justice to 2. I can see in my partner's family (his sibling and two people in the older generation) what happens when you let kids just like mine try to fend for themselves, or beat them when they don't act like you like, and it's not good.