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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Jun 10, 2009 19:04:01 GMT -5
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jlp
Junior Member
Posts: 54
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Post by jlp on Jun 10, 2009 19:47:52 GMT -5
Vyckie,
That's what you call: killing yourself for Christ.
I did something similar, but as a massive Christian codependent rather than as a quiverful Mom. However, I could never do as much as you did because I had a lot of illness.
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Post by coleslaw on Jun 10, 2009 20:43:22 GMT -5
I've never understood why having a job and a family is considered "having it all". Having a maid, a cook, a personal trainer, a masseuse, a vacation home in another country, a BMW convertible, a private jet, and a yacht is having it all. Having a job and a family is having the bare minimum that Freud considered necessary for human happiness - work and love.
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Post by redheadedskeptic on Jun 10, 2009 20:53:43 GMT -5
Do you still find yourself exhausted? At least occasionally? I only had one kid, but still find myself trying to heal, emotionally anyways after ministry work, isolation, depression, losing faith, and the divorce itself. Just wondering if it is something you still struggle with, too, even if you are overall happier now.
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Post by rosa on Jun 10, 2009 21:12:50 GMT -5
Okay, this one hurt my heart but also it was funny. And harsh. Wow!
I was a stay at home mom with ONE baby for 18 months after my difficult pregnancy and c-section. It took 6 months or so to feel healed and no longer broken/vulnerable (not to mention sleep-deprived and unable to focus) but another year or more before my abdominal muscles were strong enough to keep my back from going out all the time. I have a friend who just healed her ab muscles (so none of her guts herniate out through the gaps) all the way eight years after her second child. Just reading your story makes me want to lay down and cry with remembered exhaustion and worry.
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Post by philosophia on Jun 10, 2009 21:57:26 GMT -5
Let me just say that I love you Vyckie! Gosh, I can so totally relate to this. As I told my brother in law, perhaps I would have burned out sooner had I been sickly or incompetent! Because, honestly, the more you are capable of, the more is expected! I was birthing and nursing babies (9), educating them, keeping an acre of grandly landscaped yard, a large house, managing 28 rental houses, keeping books for our church, had a small music school meet in the house for a while, a natural food co-op, a huge vegetable garden, on top of church activities and errands and just plain life! (and putting up with an impossibly arrogant husband who counted this as nothing) We home birthing mothers are up supervising the house and doing our tax returns the next day, by the way. No sitting around passively being waited upon. I'd latch on the baby and get something done! Remember those women from the old country who plopped out babies in the fields? Do they still recommend those Primal Screams? I think I need one!
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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Jun 11, 2009 1:11:53 GMT -5
Do you still find yourself exhausted? At least occasionally? I only had one kid, but still find myself trying to heal, emotionally anyways after ministry work, isolation, depression, losing faith, and the divorce itself. Just wondering if it is something you still struggle with, too, even if you are overall happier now. Interesting that you should ask because, although I do feel incredibly better than ever 2spb.blogspot.com/2009/04/whats-that-i-feel.html ~ (hey, it's been three years since I've been pregnant or nursing!) ~ I am often overwhelmed and sometimes exhausted. Not the same sort of "I don't want to live anymore" exhausted as I experienced before ~ but still, there are days when I wonder, How can I keep going? (I wrote some about this here: 2spb.blogspot.com/2009/04/its-about-conviction.html)I am rarely depressed these days ~ and even when I do get down, I can't stay there for any length of time. It's like I drug around a heavy ball and chain for years and years (someone used the term "psychic vampire" in reference to Warren ~ and that was a perfect description of the draining effect he had on me) ~ and now that I've disentangled myself from that dead weight ~ I feel so light and free that I almost imagine that I can fly. After all that I've been through, whatever daily hassles I encounter now seem almost trivial ~ certainly nothing worth getting depressed about. As I get farther along in my story, I'll talk more about my healing ~ I think that I've done remarkably well physically considering how totally run-down I was ~ and I have a theory about what made all the difference ~ but I'm not telling that part yet ..
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aimai
Full Member
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Post by aimai on Jun 11, 2009 7:14:27 GMT -5
Vyckie, this is a very important and thought provoking essay. You've said so much its going to take a long time to digest but I wanted to say that I think you've perfectly summed up the contradictions and the oppressively triumphalist quality of so much of the quiverful writings I've seen on the blogs. First, the eternal contrast drawn between god and satan, and between godly woman and satanic feminist. No matter how you present yourself, or describe your life, or love your children, or care for your family and friends the most godly of those quiverful women think you are, at best deluded and at worst demonic. Your life and your evaluation of your own life mean nothing to them and, in fact, are seen as a kind of impeachment and rebuttal of the lives they are leading.
At the same time, as you so beautifully explicate, even their own inner life becomes a torment to a woman living under these ever multiplying rules. While thinking she does what she does for god she is, at the same time, highly self conscious about her standing before man and her neighbors. While striving for perfection as a mother, she neglects herself and her children.
Reading your testimony, and that of women still in the life, reads like the testimony of a paranoid schizophrenic given to a sympathetic doctor. Everything makes sense, but only if you don't step outside the magical thinking of the patient. It reminds me of the scene in A Beautiful Mind when the crazed mathematician has managed to half convince his wife that he has been working for the CIA all the time and that his erratic behavior is solely due to his secret, double life. Then she and a friend break in to his office at work and discover that the walls are papered with newspaper reports, pictures and maps all connected by an endless cats cradle of string and pins—everything is connected to everything else! Daily trash pickups to famous political figures, phases of the moon to major political events, minor local maps to events a world a way. There is simply no way to break out of the paranoid's belief that everything is significant and everything is connected.
In the Quiverful imaginary the wife and mother is either the respresentative of godly living, or she's a feminist proto-whore and individualist, an abortionist and possibly a spiritual cannibal to boot. Everything that the godly woman does, even if it fails, is an example of her godliness and everything that the feminist does, especially if it succeeds, is seen as proof of her ungodliness.
And vice versa, might I add. I've seen both arguments made—if a Quiverful woman is successful with her home business and her home schooled children “go to an ivy league school” that's proof that her system worked. While if a feminist is successful with her home business and her publicly schooled children go to an ivy league school that is proof that she wasn't a very good mother and she let everything become tainted with greed and her children are probably ungodly and fornicating and etc....
While, conversely, if a quiverful family is poor and the children are ignorant and untaught that is seen as proof that they are really trying to be godly and the children's innocence being preserved by their isolation. While if a “feminist” woman is poor and her children don't get a good education that's, again because she's a feminist and not because the economy is bad or she can't afford private school for her kids, or she is uneducated herself.
And, of course, as Molly over at Adventures in Mercy has written so well, when you fall out of the magic circle of group think suddenly all your sacrifices and your beliefs are shown to be hollow and the group rejects you and retroactively demonizes you. Suddenly everything you did for god becomes something you were doing for satan, your self sacrifice becomes selfishness, your friendships become mere using of others, etc...etc...etc... Of course this happens in political groups all the time—apostates are more hated and more feared than potential future converts.
aimai
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Post by decepticons on Jun 11, 2009 10:25:02 GMT -5
As a non-believer who is quite fascinated by religion, this post struck a chord with me, I think because I see it a lot among "fundamentalist" types. Their strange need to "out Christian" each other is boggling. Is it just part of the means of control to turn being a Christian (or any other religion) into a competition to see who can be best at it?
Even when it becomes detrimental to the family (kids going uneducated or under educated, not getting enough attention, etc.), the competition continues. Further down in your post, you mention that even your kids became aware of the competition and need to assert control.
Some level of competition is generally a healthy thing. It can create drive to better ourselves. It looks like, however, when applied to fundamentalism (like most things) that it becomes a negative. This need to out-Christan each other also seems to provide an ongoing reinforcement to the control over individuals to keep them in line. It's a justification for pretty much anything.
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Post by philosophia on Jun 11, 2009 10:50:24 GMT -5
Aimai, I agree with you that it is an irreconcilable dichotomy. The whole system is rigged.
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Post by AustinAvery on Jun 11, 2009 11:11:17 GMT -5
Reading your testimony, and that of women still in the life, reads like the testimony of a paranoid schizophrenic given to a sympathetic doctor. Everything makes sense, but only if you don't step outside the magical thinking of the patient. aimai That strikes me as a brilliant analogy! And really depressing to contemplate. Forgive me if I got this wrong, but aren't you the anthropologist? Is there an explanation for this sort of magical group think? Even better, a cure?
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orual
New Member
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Post by orual on Jun 11, 2009 11:21:06 GMT -5
I love this blog because it makes me realize that I am not alone in my experiences. While I wasn't so deep into the quiverfull movement, I was really deep into the patriarchal movement which led me to be married to an abusive man for 9 years. On topic - I remember trying *so* hard to be a Proverbs 31 wife. It would actually stress me out. I remember thinking that while it was impossible for me to be perfect (because no human is perfect - only God is perfect) that I should always strive to be perfect (for God). The early morning rising thing was very difficult for me. My ex worked the night shift and after making him a fresh dinner around 10pm and preparing his lunch - I would have to talk to him on the phone until he got to work. Then I would try to clean up the kitchen or wind down from my day - I'd usually go to bed around 1am-2am (I was also depressed so that contributed to my sleeplessness). I would always try to wake up at 5 or 6 for quiet time- but it wouldn't work. It didn't matter though, my ex would wake me up when he was driving home so I could talk to him on the phone till he got home. If I protested I got in trouble. I also remember being scared of the big bad daycare - when I got my divorce I had to put my 2 kidlets in daycare. It was so hard - and then I discovered something incredible. My oldest kidlet - who was a difficult toddler - became a better creature - she was so much easier to deal with...because daycare gave her something she needed. The strangest thing (to me) when I got out of the movement - was that I was doing all the things women weren't suppose to do (working, going to university, kids in daycare then public school) but I was: 1. happier 2. had a better relationship with kidlets 3. house was cleaner 4. we all ate healthier 5. I wasn't as tired anymore Sorry for the babble - I'm not use to talking about my experiences to people who understand. Part of me wants to just lay it all out in the open.
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Post by AustinAvery on Jun 11, 2009 20:19:30 GMT -5
Wow. You sacrificed all that is yourself. And when that is not enough to reach an unreachable ideal, you blamed yourself. I'm not a Christian, of course, but how could God make a women as a unique being and then insist that she not have any unique time for herself, indeed have a self? I fully understand why men in the movement would feed this insane cycle, but how do women do it? I suspect many are not making it.
Well, we're all glad you've found your "self."
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Post by kisekileia on Jun 11, 2009 22:33:47 GMT -5
"No matter how you present yourself, or describe your life, or love your children, or care for your family and friends the most godly of those quiverful women think you are, at best deluded and at worst demonic. Your life and your evaluation of your own life mean nothing to them and, in fact, are seen as a kind of impeachment and rebuttal of the lives they are leading."
To be completely and totally fair, we sort of react the same way when women claim they're happy in the Quiverfull movement. On the other hand, those women are under so much pressure to SAY they're happy that a lot of them probably are either lying or out of touch with their emotions.
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Post by sargassosea on Jun 13, 2009 8:31:21 GMT -5
What a nice correlation between 'liberated' women and 'godly women' - we're all just women with a boat-load of stuff to do all the time! Some of us work outside the home and have nothing left for our kids/partners and some of us work inside the home and have nothing left for our kids/partners and some of us work inside and outside the home with nothing left over for our kids/partners. If we are very fortunate we are able to have a life which allows for some balance of all the things that are important That's part of the MO of the patriarchy (both kinds!), though - to separate groups of women and 'play' them against each other. And it has been working for at least a couple thousand years or so... I don't think I've ever said what drew me to NLQ, and it is this: Vyckie/Fine Ladies of NLQ - I found 'you' as foreign as you found 'me' I couldn't understand how an intelligent, driven woman could work so hard only to turn those accomplishments over to some made-up guy (god) through her earthly guy (dad, husband, brother). But I think I'm beginning to understand now with the help your 'testimonies' (reclaiming words is good!) We're all really more like sisters than adversaries and it totally sucks that dudes set it up so that we, many times without even thinking, 'otherize' each other.
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aimai
Full Member
Posts: 172
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Post by aimai on Jun 13, 2009 9:52:40 GMT -5
I agree with Sea's point that the real problem is “playing” different types of women and mothers against each other, as though our lives were tokens in a zero sum game where if the “Stay at home” mom's get some credit for their hard work that credit must be taken away from the “work outside of the home moms.” This plays out all the time in the mommy wars that recur on line and in the popular press with women described as “rejecting” feminism, or “rejecting” motherhood as though those were ice cream flavors or car sizes instead of simply aspects of lived experience—and aspects that change over time, of course. Recently my favorite christianist, Kelly over at Cedar Generation, put up a post that had me absolutely rolling on the floor with laughter and dislike. www.generationcedar.com/main/2009/05/former-feminist-applauds-michelle-obama-women-can-make-husbandfamily-successful-by-leaving-her-career.htmlKelly, you have to understand, spends most of her time fending off the demons she thinks are everywhere—demons of other mothers who are not quiverful, who raise disobedient children, who are not properly submissive, who don't make it look easy, who make it look too easy and make her feel guilty....etc...etc....etc... Kelly is a grand scold in the true christianist tradition and never hesitates to point a finger of shock and horror at women who work outside the home or who limit the size of their families, or who are not obviously and loudly christian in exactly Kelly's approved style. Nevertheless she put up a post recently praising Michelle Obama for “staying home with her children” and “putting motherhood first.” Now, no one who reads Kelly regularly can believe for one minute that Michelle Obama's politics are unknown to Kelly, or that the obvious fact that she and Barack use birth control has escaped Kelly's eagle eye. In addition Kelly knows perfectly well that Michelle has a high education and worked for many years in a high position outside the home supervising men—in fact she was originally Obama's own supervisor in the Law Firm they both worked in. Not only that but being “mommy in chief” at the White House is, of course, actually a full time job that entails travel and work outside the home and plenty of time away from the girls. And not only that but, of course Michelle doesn't subscribe at all to the notion that the girls themselves should limit their education and their goals to merely staying home and submissively supporting their husbands, or rearing up a godly family of quivering children. But knowing all that Kelly still feels impelled to lay claim to Michelle's life and her family, to use them as a club to beat the “feminists” out there. We are all believed to be looking at Michelle and seeing her willingness to take on the huge, complex, wholly undomestic job of “first lady” as a retreat to motherhood—a rebuke to working women. Of course, Kelly begins by misquoting the article where she got her ideas—a stupid style piece from the London Mail. In Kelly's version Michelle appears to be directly rebuking feminists and feminism: Michelle Obama has created more than a few feminist waves by making the decision to leave her $273,000 career in order to support her husband and family. She said she wants to ” — feminists hold on to your hats — be a mother, a wife and to support her husband in every way she can in his job as President….She is, perhaps, the perfect example of a new kind of career woman who, instead of wanting it all for herself, wants it all for her family.” from Mail Online Actually, Michelle didn't say that, the Mail Online says that. A) Michelle apparently neither “made feminist waves” since no feminists were affected by her decisions and B) Nor did she say that in wanting to be a mother and a wife and to support her husband she was renouncing anything at all. and C) Feminists don't think a woman should "want it all for herself alone" they just think that women are and ought to be full participants in their families and the decisions the family makes. Because Kelly insists that feminists are always lonely, angry, individuals she implicitly assumes they either aren't married, or aren't married in any meaningful way. She writes as though they can't also be married (to men or other women) and also be loving parents, daughters, and citizens every time a “feminist” does something that isn't straight up man hating, bra burning, or stepping on others to achieve solitary business success they are, in Kelly's eyes “rejecting” feminism. The rest of us normal women applaud the fact that Michelle was able to get a great education, pursue some important financial and personal goals through a high level executive career, to marry a wonderful man who became first Senator and then, with her help, President and that she and he have now jointly stepped into a new work and family balance where many of their interests—financial, social, and political, can be realized. This has so little to do with “accepting” or “rejecting” feminism that its almost absurd to talk about it in the same sentence. Michelle's whole life, as Barack's, has been lived by following the principle that individuals—men or women—should follow their star and their strong goal to be well educated and self supporting. His mother's role model and Michelle's life so far reveal that Michelle doesn't, in fact, think that Michelle and her daughter's interests, education, and financial life should be subordinate to Barack or the next guy in their life. They are choosing to live and act as a family in which, for the moment, Barack's life and career are a joint endeavor which they can all enjoy—I defy anyone to explain to me how Michelle is “sacrificing” anything “for the family.” She's not. When a woman is hard working and lucky enough to end up in Michelle Obama's shoes her choices are just what women's choices always have been—pretty darned good. Feminism and, in Michelle Obama's case, the democratic and liberal struggle for civil rights made them much, much better than they would have been otherwise. Michelle's independent career enabled Barack's success. Not her sacrifice of her autonomy but her powerful, singular, autonomy joined voluntarily with his. That the family is more than the sum of its parts—more than Barack's individiual interests plus some portion of Michelle's individual interests is obvious. But that isn't identical to Kelly's version of things which, following Blackstone and old English law sees the family as “one body...with the head of the household being the husband.” My point is this: I'm sick and tired of seeing women pitted against other women as pawns in a game of “let me prove my life is better than yours.” It can only be done with violence to the real lives that women are living. And its done dishonestly—for a kind of phony spiritual gain. I don't do it with regard to the Quiverful women. I believe and accept that there are women who enjoy the lifestyle they are choosing. I don't agree that that lifestyle is good for them, or for their children (both boys and girls) and I don't believe its good for their husbands. I don't believe that because I have a personal definition of the word “good” that demands that human beings be fully accountable for their choices and their acts and not slough them off on a higher power (god) or slough them off on a subordinate higher power (a husband). I also don't believe its good because many of these women confess to terrible angers, unhappinesses, depressions and personal failures all the time—its just that they think their reward comes later. Since I don't believe in an afterlife I don't think that present misery is made up for later by a hidden goody bag. But I don't quarrel with what these women truly believe and if one of them was really happy now, as well as living in expectation of great happiness later, I'd have not problem acknowledging that and even admiring it. aimai
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Post by luneargentee on Jun 13, 2009 16:12:17 GMT -5
This is typical cult indoctrination. Lack of sleep, a destruction of self, regular demoralization, a demand for perfection, denial of needs.
It's been very interesting the last few weeks. I've been reanalyzing my life since finding this blog, but now I've added to it by taking sociology this semester. When I read Vyckie's posts about her life changes, I find myself reflecting back on my life and also analyzing them for class.
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Post by luneargentee on Jun 13, 2009 16:24:43 GMT -5
I want to add that, if you haven't seen Friends of God by Alexandra Pelosi, you should. There's a family that has obviously been sucked into the QF and homeschooling movements. The wedding picture showed a lovely, blonde woman in a beautiful dress. The woman currently looks 20 years older, sad and tired. She was dressed in a long dress with head scarf and no makeup. The husband looked just the same. I wanted to reach out and shake her awake.
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Post by lucrezaborgia on Jun 13, 2009 21:18:28 GMT -5
Kelly at Generation Cedar drives me batshit insane. She's always posting how wonderful and easy her life is while at the same time also posting how she is such a sinner and how it's a hard life. Some of her logic is mind boggling to the extreme.
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Post by krwordgazer on Jun 14, 2009 1:37:40 GMT -5
Thank you for posting the Generation Cedar link, Aimai -- I was not familiar with it.
To me the weird thing about what she's saying is not that married partners sacrifice for their kids, but that somehow the only partner who is or should be expected to do so is the woman.
She talks about women giving up high-powered careers. Apparently she doesn't know that many times, so do men-- that men are realizing more and more that career isn't everything, and how important family is.
The fact is that whether a woman is a stay-at-home mom or a career mom-- or something in-between, as I am-- the only way she's going to have time and energy to give to her husband and kids is if her husband and kids are also giving time and energy, so that the household chores are not resting squarely and solely on her exhausted shoulders.
Like you said, Aimai-- it's supposed to be about mutual support, about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. That only happens when both partners, not just one, are giving.
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Post by castor on Jun 14, 2009 9:34:05 GMT -5
To me the weird thing about what she's saying is not that married partners sacrifice for their kids, but that somehow the only partner who is or should be expected to do so is the woman. Yes, to me that's the weird thing too. The terrible thing even. And unfortunately it's not just this woman who thinks like this, many QF/P christians do. Vyckie writes that she used to believe that women couldn't have it all (all being a career and a family), and that's what I read on many QF/P blogs. However, I've never read men can't have it all. In fact, though no QF/P blog literally says "men CAN have it all", the idea seems to be that men in fact can have it all, should have it all even. All, being a career and a family. Men are good Christians if they have a family (are the head of a family), a wife and children, and work to provide for this family of them. If men have a job and a family it isn't just tolerated, it is seen as the perfect situation. So, men can have it all, but if a woman wants the same thing, it's "women can't have it all, and dying to self, and being godly, and oh her poor children who will care for them when she is working?"
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Post by passionfruit on Jun 14, 2009 13:58:46 GMT -5
aimai: What Kelly doesn't seem to realize is that Michelle Obama has the luxury of staying at home to be a mother. Her husband is making $400,000 a year. She has a husband who can financially support his family. Of course it was the other way around before Barack Obama became president. That's what a lot of women like Kelly don't realize. That in order to devote you're time to be a wife and mother you must have a husband who has a decent salary. She also doesn't seem to realize that not every woman out there has the option of being a full time wife and mother. A lot of women have to work. Personally, for me, I'm glad Michelle Obama even had the choice to be a full time wife and mother. Because many women of color in the past never had this choice, they had to work for the most part. Thanks for posting that link. The whole "mommy wars" ignores low income women. This is why you have feminists out there who criticize these idealizations of motherhood. It's like this: You have to be a wife and mother, but you can't just be any kind of wife and mother. This is why single motherhood is so demonized. Also, the Quiverfull movement was a counter movement to counter feminism. So I'm surprised by the hatred toward feminism and feminists. I enjoyed your post Vyckie. The things you've done when you're in the Quiverfull have been work.
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Post by barbaraw on Jun 14, 2009 14:46:09 GMT -5
What Kelly doesn't seem to realize is that Michelle Obama has the luxury of staying at home to be a mother. Her husband is making $400,000 a year. She has a husband who can financially support his family. And, of course, one of the biggest expenses that most families have to contend with -- housing -- is provided by his employer, including both the keeping-a-roof-over-our-heads expense and the maintenance-and-upkeep expenses.
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Post by passionfruit on Jun 14, 2009 15:27:44 GMT -5
What Kelly doesn't seem to realize is that Michelle Obama has the luxury of staying at home to be a mother. Her husband is making $400,000 a year. She has a husband who can financially support his family. And, of course, one of the biggest expenses that most families have to contend with -- housing -- is provided by his employer, including both the keeping-a-roof-over-our-heads expense and the maintenance-and-upkeep expenses. Most definitely. When I used to attend a Pentecostal church growing up, there were women who preached that we must be stay at home full time mothers and wives. If they didn't do this, they're "bad" women. Here I am, a child who comes from a single parent household and this woman is telling me that my mother is essentially a bad mother because she can't devote her time to being a SAHM. But she's living in a house in the suburbs.
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Post by rosa on Jun 14, 2009 17:20:41 GMT -5
Yeah, passionfruit, I never understood the conservative love of "welfare to work" programs for moms of young children - like, it's better for kids to have mom at home, unless she's poor?
The other thing that gets left out of that discussion is that not every woman is cut out to be a full-time mom. I wasn't *bad* at it, but it's definitely not playing to my strengths. When I was a SAHM a lot of people would say "you should have another baby, only children grow up weird/unsocialized/selfish. Now, first of all I don't believe that. But second, there is a much simpler way to solve that problem: he can go to daycare and spend all day learning to share, negotiate, and socialize. Another example: I've known several kids with autism who got earlier treatment because a childcare provider, with a wide knowledge of child development, spotted it way before the parents did.
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