|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 15, 2010 19:58:02 GMT -5
"Life is hard. Get used to it." Those words are for the Duggars. They are on a reality TV show! Their entire life iis up for discussion and they're getting paid for it. They invited the cameras into their home. They invited scrutiny. I am sure being grown adults they KNOW that people will find fault with them.
I was certainly not calling you any names, calluna. I just was not moved by your plea to be less critical of the Duggars.
Am I bitchy? I didn't think my post was over the top. But, eh, I've been called worse. *shrugs*
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 14, 2010 7:46:50 GMT -5
Wow. I guess I should not be surprised that your mother wouldn't help you with your own children, Chandra. But I am. No, not surprised. Shocked and disgusted. Yet again.
I have already admitted that I am a very bad person, so it should come as no surprise that calluna's pleas for everyone to be less harsh in our statements about the Duggar's don't move me much. Life is hard. Get used to it.
Whether or not the open opinions of disapproval move moms in The Movement to stop and reconsider their lives or not is to me a moot point. Far more important to me is that the daughters of such homes feel validated and supported by what they read here.
But then as a mom ostracized by Movement home schooler for at least keeping my head on somewhat straight, it's understandable that sparing the feelings of those moms is not high on my last. In my experience, they don't have any ethical concerns about hurting the feelings of people outside the Movement...
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 13, 2010 11:41:52 GMT -5
As an American Christian mother I am dumb-founded by your story, Ruth. Speechless. Wow.
Seriously. Wow.
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 10, 2010 13:16:32 GMT -5
I agree with you Lucreza.
My son played community league football, YMCA basketball, both Y and community league soccer. Invariably he was the only home schooled player.
On the other hand, religious isolationist home schoolers started their own football league in my state, because they did not want their precious sons contaminated by the community league players. They join church league sports instead of community league or Y league teams. They very much want to be a world unto themselves.
When my son aged out of community league, he played in the home school league for one season. It was a disaster!
The coaching was earnest and devout-they had devotions every practice- but they couldn't play football for snot. Plus, although they gave the impression that cussing is the worst sin ever, they showed no hospitality, acceptance or generosity to anyone who did not fit their fundamentalist ilk. (Me and the Mormon mom can attest to this!) Their "holier than thou" attitude is censured strongly in the Bible. Finally, the blatant favoritism of the coached to their sons made for serious team disunity and dissatisfaction for most of the players.
Contrast that with community league, where vocabulary could be quite colorful, but the people were wonderful! The players accepted anyone who played with heart. The parents accepted anyone interested enough to attend practices and games! Racial and socio-economic boundaries ceased to exist on the football field at community league. It was a great experience.
So, yeah, avoiding people with different values, avoiding the parks when public schooled children might be present, that's pretty much the definition of isolationist. A lot of home schoolers live that way. Some support groups merely encourage it. Others require it.
When I started home schooling, parents actually were still encouraging each other to get their children involved in their community. We were concerned about social skills and learning to get along with the other people of our community.
I think it's sad that idea went out of fashion, at least in some circles.
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 10, 2010 7:48:05 GMT -5
@ arietty ROFLOL @ dangermom I don't see lucretia's words as an indictment of ALL home schoolers! She just pointed out that the two boys in her after-school program were home schooled- and hanging out with public schooled kids in the park every day after school.I thought she was pointing out the difference between isolationist home schoolers and er, let's call ourselves freedom home schoolers. Some home schoolers, like Chandra's mom, choose to home school to LIMIT their children's social world. Other home schoolers choose to home school because they want MORE opportunities to explore the world outside of the classroom. In my experience, it's no wonder the outside culture has a hard time telling the two apart. Isolationist home schoolers use the rhetoric of freedom home schoolers when they tout the benefits of home schooling. But they are lying hypocrites, as Chandra's experience shows. While claiming that they are teaching each child according to their bent and engaging in delight-directed learning, they are mostly just neglecting their children's intellect and joie de vivre. Apologies to all the home school moms out there who really wanted to give their children a quality education, but were hijacked by the QF movement and put in a no-win bind. I know you didn't choose to be deceived.
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 9, 2010 14:54:22 GMT -5
God, I hate your mom. Yeah, yeah, I am not supposed to hate, I know. Yada, yada, yada. But I hate her anyway, and all those home school hypocrites leading support groups everywhere. A big Bronx salute to them all, I say! There is no excuse for the pathetic job your mother did, Chandra, both as a teacher and as a mom. Absolutely none. I could rant about this for hours. But I won't. I have a life to lead and not much time to devote to this post. BUT I will say this: YOU DESERVED BETTER! All children deserve better. ps No wonder the other moms didn't want us around! It probably made them feel like crap to be around my children who were getting a solid education. pps I congratulated a young family today for giving up home schooling and putting their oldest in first grade. They have five children under the age of six. It would be impossible to do a stellar job under those circumstances! I was proud that they had no problem admitting that and doing what was best for all of their kids. Thought you might like to know, Chandra, and be happy for this little girl who isn't going to get stuck in a bad situation. ;D
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 9, 2010 7:45:37 GMT -5
*sigh* "Another one bites the dust, hey hey, another one bites the dust, whooooah Boom Boom Boom..."
I have been home schooling for fourteen years now, and watching new home schoolers join the lemmings and head for the cliffs is distressing.
I have one neighbor in our neighborhood who started home schooling a few years back. I discovered her when we were on a walk during school hours, and her son was outside on more than one occasion.
I thought that I could befriend her, and save her so much grief, but alas to the Kool-Aid buffet she ran anyway. Even in our few brief exchanges she could tell that I was not an approved home school family.
Ah well, sucks to be her. I think she could totally relate to today's intro, although not from the hindsight of having escaped! Maybe if I run across her again I can give her the URL. It might wind up in the trash, but then again, it might be the start of a new freedom in her life.
Today is yet another day I will spend trying to think of ways to stop the madness from poisoning the home school community- though it may be too late. The people who most need to hear about the dangers of this home school paradigm are inoculated not to listen to we compromising, atheist, pagan, etc. in other words inferior home school families....
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 7, 2010 20:21:37 GMT -5
Don't you think this might be because you can't educate for excellence with a dozen kids, all at different developmental stages?
When I started home schooling, education was paramount and freedom was the means to that end. The support group talk was about hands-on real life experiential learning, unit studies, learning styles, delight-directed learning and letting the student's ability/development set the time line. Even the Christians took all this stuff seriously at the beginning.
Some of us never lost this goal for home schooling, family learning. But more and more fundamentalist extremism became a widening influence. The QF teachings accelerated the nonsense.
Because let's be honest, you can't do delight directed learning with twelve different students without a lot of money and at least a part-time housekeeper. If you are going to be out in the world looking for experiential learning opportunities, you will have to eat out- and for twelve students that is a lot of money. With twelve students at all age levels, including nursing and toddlers, few of them are going to get the kind of attention they need for a mom to discern their learning styles. Few of them will themselves have time or opportunity to discover what they might be interested in pursuing as a talent or an interest.
The leaders could tell they were not keeping up with the original intentions, so they simply changed the rules. Character is more important. The older girls become the housekeeper, and that's the experiential learning they will get- who cares what they are interested in or talented for! God wills it. The boys get political indoctrination and religious dogma, because all that requires is a Bible and a radio set on religious channels. College falls prey to the sour grapes syndrome. No one is prepared for it educationally and who could afford it anyway? So the leaders teach it is unnecessary at best, and will destroy your childrens' faith at worst.
As a home school mom myself, I am angry that I let myself be shoved out and silenced. My kids have had a great education, and I am still a huge supporter of home education as I embraced it and practiced it.
But I wish I had stood up and publicly debated these stupid trends that have hurt so many children and mothers. Instead I just went my own way. *shrugs*
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 7, 2010 19:49:13 GMT -5
Tapati, Once again another of your posts has touched my heart in such a gentle way. I too have retained my faith in the Divine. I even still call him by the name I have always used- Jesus. But I am so much more open to the idea that other people can know the same Presence by a different name. I do not believe in a micromanaging Deity either, but a loving Creator waiting for all those who reach out to Love in faith- wherever they find it and whatever name they want to use for it, secular or religious. Which is to boldly confess I am not a fundamentalist anymore. Jesslyn, My daughter was shunned as well, just at the time in life that she most needed friends and that her personal faith in God was so earnest. The pain of that rejection shaped her for years to come, as she became cynical, hardened and goth as she could get away with. All people are cruel, but when religious people are cruel, it is a harsher blow. Especially if you are earnest in your desire to live an ethical loving life, and these people who agreed with you on the importance of that are practicing gossip and malice instead, and aimed at you no less! Shamefully I admit that I also treated others that way when I was allowed in the "in" crowd, over other issues. It's all so petty, and more about cliques and peer pressure and jockeying for social position than anything remotely spiritual. But I think there are many like us, who started out home schooling to provide a rich educational experience, and along the way someone changed agendas on us. Those of us shoved out were actually the lucky ones! Enjoy your freedom in your new secular home school world!
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 3, 2010 16:57:16 GMT -5
Huh? I sure didn't start this storm, km. I have had to continually defend myself against accusations of callousness/right-wing poor bashing- like what you just did to me again. People like me are why you don't go to church? The part that is most unfair is that I have been homeless myself, and have opened my own home to the homeless on several occasions, and have a house guest staying with me now who would be in that situation if not for good people like me helping. I often have people in my home, for meals, etc. I am a huge giver- not to the church necessarily (that too though) but to people. People. Single moms. Homeless teens. My disabled twin sister. And yes, QF families in dire financial need. And yet, even generous, giving people like myself do not want others to depend on us to rescue them as their mainstay. It is good for each of us to be truly self-sufficient as far as one possibly can be. If you are out of work you should be looking for work, not just praying for it. If you can't work, because of disability or whatever, that would be one thing. But this thread was about QF financial plans, and my posts specifically were about waiting around for other people to feel sorry enough for you to meet your need. And it happens! If you can't support your family on the money you currently make, don't add to the numbers purposefully and then call it the will of God. And if someone bails you out, by all means thank God, but don't see it as a sign that you are doing everything right and you don't need a better financial plan. I have no idea why you, km, and arrietty are so offended by this. As I said before, I am sorry you are offended by my opinion, but don't go beyond what I have written and slander my character by insinuating I am selfish and hard-hearted. A forum is for sharing thoughts; lets share with a bit less acrimony, please.
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 3, 2010 9:05:23 GMT -5
Ironic, isn't it, that so many religious school curriculae claims to teach "critical thinking" skills when they are really just putting up straw men to tear down with the prepared religious refutation? I am specifically thinking of creation science, but it creeps into all the books. Like the high school Spanish we studied. In learning about Latin American culture, what they were really teaching was the fundamentalist interpretation of traditional practices (they were bad!) and how the fundamentalist church in Latin America lived (this was the right way- though it is a teeny tiny segment of Latin American culture). We used it to develop true critical thinking though, like "what do you see as the agenda behind this textbook developer? what methods are they using to try to accomplish this? how likely is it that they will succeed? do you think this is how most people of this culture really live?" etc.
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 2, 2010 12:02:46 GMT -5
You did such a good job it sounded like you were an insider to the whole QF movement. That is exactly the sort of thing fundie isolationist parents tell themselves and their teens. I've said parts of it before myself, before I got out of my bubble and started hanging out with neighbors who public schooled.
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 2, 2010 11:59:05 GMT -5
Thanks for your soothing words, kr.
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 2, 2010 11:46:51 GMT -5
brownwyn, Have you read The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn? Subtitled "how to quit school and get a real life and education" I think you would love it! My daughter's home school experience was a bizarre mix of Christian fundamentalism and 70s hippe unschooling leanings coupled with extreme nerdiness. We watched Psalty and Charity Churchmouse! And a few years later she was logging on to Neopets to roleplay. I was nothing if NOT inconsistent. Like Sierra I am sure she would agree the fundamentalism was the part she would like to have done without.
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 1, 2010 12:45:11 GMT -5
I don't think I was disclosing "more and more information".
I wrote my original response to the idea that the financial plan of the frugal QF was to do without until someone else "donated" what you need- i.e. in compassion and pity met the need.
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 1, 2010 12:16:30 GMT -5
Okay, these are the kind of stereotypes to which I strongly object! It is exactly the sort of horse hooey repeated in cloistered religious communities to "protect" (i.e. control) girls.
There are many, many secular public school girls who are not obsessed with magazines. Seriously! Girls who are interested in making the world a better place, learning and studying academic subjects, creating art and music that translate the human experience in ways that bring us all together. Shallow, fashion obsessed girls are pretty rare! They are hardly the majority at any public school.
Teenage boys are horrible people?!? Not the teenage boys I know! They are just, honorable people for the most part. Hormone driven? Are you saying home schooled boys have no hormones, or they are not as potent as public schooled hormones? Awkward? What teenage boy is NOT awkward? And how is this a bad thing and how does it reinforce the other things on your list?
Rape and sexual harrassment? Really? You think this is the norm at public schools? Yikes! That is not true at all. Do you really think that all the thousands of parents in your local community would keep sending their children to school to be raped and sexually harrassed? It defies belief that you think so low of all the people in your community that do not home school.
(Personally my experience is that the more patriocentric a man is, the more likely he is to sexually harrass women and girls. After all, he has been taught that merely by baring our arms we are asking for his sexual attention...)
Peer pressure? There is no peer pressure that keeps people from pursuing interests they enjoy regardless of whether those interests are considered "cool" or "lame". I know public school students who are classical pianists, dancers, free runners, mimes- all kinds of "uncool" hobbies and interests. If a child's family supports them in pursuing their interests and being true to themselves (and most families do) then it doesn't matter where they go to school.
The patriarchal home school community has the biggest problems with peer pressure I have ever encountered, but it's the parents complying with it, and the teens only because the parents force it on them, a la the Duggars.
You are correct about the many messages in the world about sexuality found in magazines, tv, movies, etc. That's what parents are for, to help children sort through all these messages and discern the honest truth. But the huge majority of public school parents I know are doing a stellar job in this area too.
In fact, the parents I know who suck at helping their children understand healthy responsible human sexuality have children who are often truant and have not graduated a child from public school yet.
That list was atrocious. Please get out there and meet more people involved in their public schools- educators, parents, the students themselves- and you will see how few students fit your stereotypes.
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 1, 2010 11:54:16 GMT -5
I agree about the horse chips, Sierra!
These girls are not free to make any decisions about the world, religion, relationships, music, etc. They have been carefully instructed how to think about everything by their parents and their Wisdom books.
Their parents have completely controlled who they would be allowed to meet and get to spend time with and listen to for their entire lives. Even visiting the like-minded household was no doubt parent approved or the girls would not even be there.
Free? Not hardly.
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 1, 2010 11:41:28 GMT -5
Oh, this post scares the cr** out of me! My last two nieces weddings were SO similar! I thought the first one was scary, with all of her emphasis on submitting to her new husband as if he were the embodiment of the Lord. The idolatry was blatant. But then my next niece outdid her, using the word submit at least a dozen times in her vows, and the word love only once. I remember thinking that maybe she would still be okay, since her husband seemed to love her exceedingly, fawning over her and crying during his vows in which he did pledge to love her over and over again. Then this: and this: I don't feel so well.
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Sept 1, 2010 11:27:15 GMT -5
One father is a wonderful person, honestly if you met him you would LOVE him! But there is a problem, he has no one job that will support his family. He teaches a few music lessons ($20 a week a student) and he is music director for our tiny church (a very part time job). I think all his hopes right now are resting on a CD he just cut, and I hope it sells, but his first CD *I* couldn't listen to and I really wanted to like it! They just had their 5th child- and no one signed up to bring them meals. People are just tired of helping them out, even though we really LIKE them! Oh, and they LOVE their children, and are super nurturing parents. Making a meal is too onerous a form of helping out? Frankly that's just petty and unkind. I have been the person who had too many kids so people didn't bother making me a meal when one more arrived. I will NEVER be the person who looks at a family and wonders if they are deserving enough for me to spend half an hour of my life making them a freaking meal. You keep saying that people "LOVE" them.. well guess what a meal is about a lot more than whether the family could or should be able to make a meal for themselves. No matter how poor you are you can probably scrape together some kind of meal. A meal coming from friends and church is a way of showing them that you "LOVE" them.. you actually care enough to remember them and spend a little of your time and money on them. It's not love if the person has to deserve it first. I kind of thought that was the whole point of the gospel? This makes me very frustrated. It's a horrible to thing to have to earn kindness by meeting the expectations of others. We are not talking about some family demanding their mortgage be paid or that the church buys them a car, it is a MEAL. I know a real kick in the gut for me in my church was seeing meals and baby showers heaped upon first time moms and with my last child I received nothing at all. I had made about 50 casseroles for the food bank there over the last few years too, that was a contribution I felt fitted my abilities as a mom of many. Yet for some reason it wasn't very exciting to fuss over a mom with number 8 baby, like it was to fuss over the ones with number 1 or 2. And no it wasn't that I needed food because I was poor, or because I'd just had a baby (thank you Gentle Spirit magazine for your make 30 meals and freeze in a day articles). What I needed was for someone to actually care about me and show it with simple, caring gestures. I still do not understand this. When I read the above I am right back there, not understanding it. Well, so you have experienced it too. Compassion fatigue is the name for it when giving people who have been giving to same endless need for a very long time run out of energy to give anymore. Yes, we as a congregation really do love them, no matter how hollow that sounds to you. We have helped them out financially as individuals and as a church MANY TIMES! Every day problems are a huge financial crisis to them- car repairs, home repairs, illness requiring medical attention, etc. They let the world know their needs on their "ministry" website, and people donate through paypal or hand them envelopes or checks. We really don't need a minister of music, but we have one now because we want to help them be self-sufficient as much as help them meet their needs. That's the same reason I asked him to teach music lessons. If they as a couple want to continue to have children every year, they as a couple need to be able to support them. The entire second letter to the Thessalonians revolves around the issue of people not working and expecting the local group of believers to keep meeting their needs. Paul was against it, for the record. This is the real world in which we live, and anyone who is QF and not independently wealthy is going to eventually drain the generous people in their lives dry. People don't mind giving when the need is occasional. Everyone- regardless of their religion- gets tired of constantly being asked to help the same people over and over again. Someone earlier wrote that it is the reason for the existence of social services- people continue to need help even after they have alienated all the friends and relatives who could/do help in a crisis. When it's no longer a crisis, but a chronic situation, continued donations are not the answer. It's time to change the underlying dynamics of the situation. When a family cannot meet the needs of the people already part of the family, at the very least they can stop adding more people to that family. Next they can work on meeting the needs of the family as it already exists- one or both parents working outside the home, for money and looking for employment that is sufficient for at least their most basic needs- including car/home repair, minor medical emergencies, etc. Wrong, it is not "just a meal". It was another meal requested after people have already been donating to help pay their mortgage and keeping their car running. And you can rant about it all day, but since people generally hate conflict, they use passive-aggressive means like not signing up for meals to let people know they are tired of being asked for personal sacrifice on behalf of QF families on a continuous basis. Would you like honesty better? I don't think so. I really doubt you would feel any better about it if someone wrote you a note saying: "I regularly bail your family out financially. When the water heater broke, we paid for a used one and helped install it. When your transmission went out, we donated to the fund used to replace it. When you go on ministry trips, we donated to help pay your mortgage when you missed work that month. All that because we like you, but we can't keep this up. If you are going to keep having children, you need to figure out how you are going to provide for them. We don't approve of your reckless approach to financial/family planning, calling whatever happens the will of God and then relying on the good will of others to carry the crisis. Figure out how to become financially stable so that you can be the one helping instead of the one always taking. Your honest friend, fellow parishoner." Methinks that wouldn't go over with you any better than a thin sign-up sheet for taking meals to a QF mother on her fifth plus pregnancy....
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Aug 30, 2010 12:52:11 GMT -5
Yes, you are right. I did refer to my statement as a "bomb" first. I stand corrected.
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Aug 29, 2010 16:59:52 GMT -5
Completely agree. Also probably true, but life is harsh. And people about to experience QF meltdown- when the teens suddenly are not the perfect little angels, and the money is not magically appearing, and the cars are at the end of their lives and no amount of prayer will change that, well, how HARSH is that?! None of the false teachers who set this family up for tragedy are around to help out. Not one. And my friend was not worried about any social stigma of food stamps (which is not the same as welfare btw) only the religious/conservative political stigma put out by those same charlatans. She was HAPPY to understand the rest of the world's point of view, which is that as a society want all of our children to be well-nourished. She was set free to stop looking at the government as the enemy and accept government as the collective voice of our society, our neighbors, our fellow citizens. It was a great load off of her mind, that she would not be sinning to accept the help. I apologize if my honesty was too harsh for the gentle readers of NLQ. I forgot my audience. That is obviously true. Though my IRL friend was helped and not offended, I obviously have offended people here on the form. I am sorry for that. But I am not sorry for the real life conversation, because truth is a beautiful and precious gift that too few people have the courage to share. Even if the woman had been so offended she never wanted to speak to me again, the words would have helped her because they were true. And for me, being a help is more important than personal popularity anyway. But that's neither here nor there as we are still friends and she speaks highly of me and to me, so I have no worries.
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Aug 29, 2010 14:38:05 GMT -5
humbletigger and Madame: I think you both may be misreading each other. I am not reading Madame as arguing that food stamps and government assistance deserve the stigma that they have--just that the stigma does exist, and that the process can be harsh and dehumanizing for those who have to rely on it. Having had to rely on it, I know that this is true, but this doesn't mean that I'm against government assistance. I simply think "the system"--such as it is--needs to step up its treatment of people who are poor. Please correct me if I'm wrong about what you said, Madame, but I think you're suggesting that the church does have such a mandate to provide for the poor, even if it hasn't effectively followed through. As a kind of Christian myself, I'm personally partial to the Latin American liberation theology of the Cold War era that argues that God maintains an "option for the poor," that takes seriously the idea that it's harder for a wealthy man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, and that seriously challenges its people to work for economic justice. I think the witnesses of people like Oscar Romero have been among the most important that mainstream religion has ever seen, and I'm sympathetic to what Madame is saying about how the church doesn't do what it should. This is not to suggest that I think the church has the capacity to take up the slack now, in the diverse cultures in which we live. It's not to say that I think the church needs to replace welfare agencies--of course, I don't believe this. If I'm any kind of Christian, I'm the post-Marxist kind borne of that legacy of liberation thinking and resistance. So, yes, I believe in all of the government assistance that the good liberals among us likely support--and then some (probably). But I do think there's good reason for calling the church to be accountable to its alleged theology. Not that it should replace the welfare state, but it could go a damned long way in combating insidious belief systems like the prosperity gospel. Perhaps you are right, km, and we are misreading each other. She compared my loving statement of truth to a bomb though, a weapon of mass destruction, and questioned the integrity of my friendship in plain words. If I misjudged her, it should be plain where I would get the idea that she thinks evil of me, my heart and my church. Why would she or you assume that my church teaches prosperity theology or that it is full of rich people with hard hearts? We are a tiny Lutheran congregation that meets in a dilapidated old building- which is fine because it feels more comfortable to most of us that way. We are egalitarian, interracial, and have members whose occupationss range from homeless/unemployed to trucker to professionals to one small business owner, and everything in between. Those who have more are often opening their wallets, homes and lives to those who have less. Even so, we are still not called or equipped to carry the financial burden for QF families who keep having children even though they have no steady source of adequate income.
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Aug 29, 2010 12:55:50 GMT -5
I have seen this happen so many times, Kiery, and it ticks me off! It ticks me off royally. Uh, no, not my student. We have actually been in the business of education all these years. He really DOES know trig, and logarithms, and he's ready for derivatives. Honest. My son is taking Spanish CLEP in two weeks, and my daughter is a Japanese major in her junior year of college. But then I could afford resources and even private lessons, because I only had two children. I did that on purpose so that my children could be provided for, and have a nominally sane mom who could be there for them on an individual basis. But so many home school families, instead of admitting when it's time to bring in outside help, did exactly what Kiery and Arriety saw- they just redefined what the goals were as they went, so no matter how bad they were failing, they still give themselves an "A". And mostly it is about money. You can take online courses through OU or UN/Lincoln and have expert instruction at home, but it's several hundred dollars a course. When you're making your own laundry soap and shopping at Goodwill on discount days, a few hundred dollars might as well be a few thousand. Not everyone can home school successfully. I LOVE home schooling, but there seriously needs to be stricter regulation. It has gone from reasonable to bat shit crazy in only one decade. WT*?!?
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Aug 29, 2010 12:30:29 GMT -5
I think you are making wrong assumptions here, madame, about me, my church and the people I befriend.
Yes, I really DO want to be her friend, and I show it by speaking plain truth to her instead of indulging the fantasy that she gets pregnant by divine intervention rather than plain old biology. She's my age, college educated and she would have figured it out on her own if FALSE TEACHERS hadn't promoted the LIE that God "opens and closes the womb" by divine fiat every time people have sex because in a few places in the Bible it is recorded that He did so for specific people in specific incidences. She deserves someone to speak the truth to her! God knows false teachers have had no problem speaking lies to her.
(God also healed a few lepers, but we don't refuse medical care to people with leprosy today nor accuse them of being cursed specifically by God, even though Miriam got leprosy when she gossiped about Moses interracial marriage. Sheesh. That whole theology is so bankrupt.)
Friends don't let friends labor under delusions, especially not when it is destroying their lives. This grinding poverty, debt, and guilt are a heavy burden this QF family needlessly bears. A true friend will point out that they do not have to keep living that way (although it will be years before the debt part is ended). She is already so much happier now that she can accept food stamps guilt free and feed her children! ;D
I meant every word I said to her about gov't assistance and every word I wrote about it here.
You say that the other father is doing "everything he can" for his family? No he's not! He could apply for regular 9-5 jobs too. He could use birth control and stop adding to a family that he cannot now support. He is a great guy, but he is most certainly not doing everything he can.
The church is not meant to be a welfare agency. Read II Thessalonians- one of the main themes of that letter is the people are responsible to support themselves and their families by working. In fact, I started the whole lesson income for him myself, as a way of helping them while encouraging self-sufficiency. My son was his first client and at my request.
You should be careful what you wish on other people, especially if you truly believe the law of sowing and reaping. I found out that no one signed up for taking meals because I took a meal (without anyone asking) the day she was in labor, and hurriedly put together another meal for the very next day when I got the sign up sheet and there were no names for the first three days. Then I called around and got other people involved!
I don't know you, perhaps not long ago you were one of those people, expecting the church to help you out of all your troubles while you kept procreating in faith. But it really stretches the limits of a congregation's charity, when a family is doing little to nothing to support themselves yet adding to the family head count without any regard to their ability to support themselves. Five kids in five years with no steady source of income. That is just unwise, no matter how you slice it.
It is wrong, just waiting it out until other people take care of you. I think that is what the QF founders practice and teach, and it is not a workable plan long-term. For some families, it doesn't even work short term. Because it's not really a plan, now, is it?
But then, I am one of those labeled selfish and lacking in faith by QFers- I have only two children. And because of that I have the $$ for music lessons, and taking meals to new parents. If I had ten kids of my own I couldn't afford lessons, or taking multiples meals to other families, or be able to open my home without charge to young adults fleeing patriarchal, abusive QF homes- I wouldn't have the room or the budget to provide well for my own family, much less anyone else.
(new thread: Isn't that the real reason QF is anti-college? They could never afford to send all their children, so they apply the sour grapes rule? Who wants to go to college anyway, waste of money, destroys your faith, etc., etc.)
Rosa, thank you for your comments. You are right on the money.
|
|
|
Post by humbletigger on Aug 28, 2010 9:53:59 GMT -5
This discussion is very helpful to me. I have nothing to add, but thanks to all posting and to Vyckie for setting up this forum.
|
|