|
Post by km on Sept 19, 2010 19:58:44 GMT -5
Jim-Bob’s self-control often seems cold and calculated—like if the cameras were off he’d explode.I have seen this. There's something in the way he talks - like he scripts his own words. He sounds like a very bad actor a lot of time - like he's reciting off what he's saying, without any honesty or heart behind it, and if the cameras were gone, there would be a whole different side to his personality - but I was never sure if it was just my ears deceiving me. Since my family is a "the Duggars are the most amazing family in the history of the world" no one has ever agreed with me on it. See, I get this more from Michelle than from Jim-Bob.
|
|
|
Post by km on Sept 19, 2010 19:22:38 GMT -5
I can't remember, I know white cheese is ok but not yellow cheese, maybe MSG? Whatever makes cheetos, mac and cheese and chedder cheese yellow is the culprit. Oh, blech... Do those foods even have real cheese in them? I just think they're gross. Not evil per se.
|
|
|
Post by km on Sept 19, 2010 19:11:18 GMT -5
Heh - that reminds me. One branch of my family lives in Rural Georgia, and they've been farmers for several generations. One of my older family members mentioned that when she was a girl and they ran out of the Sears Catalogue, they would use old cornhusks. I don't want to think about the specifics of that, but there's one answer. She herself in her later years lived in a nice modern home with a bathroom, and yes, toilet paper. And she didn't apologize for it. Oh! That'll teach me to comment before finishing the thread.
|
|
|
Post by km on Sept 19, 2010 19:08:35 GMT -5
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Forgive me but you guys are cracking me up with all of this. I was telling Vyckie the other day (and I'm still not sure she believes me) but when I was a wee kid I spent a lot of time on my grandparents farm. They had no electricity or indoor plumbing so kerosene lamps and the 2-holer out back were the 'facilities'. Back then huge catalogues were the norm from (in Canada) Simpsons and Eatons and there was always this 3" thick catalogue between the holes for the purpose of cleaning yourself. You just tore out a page or two and crumpled it up and did the necessary. And if the next page was one of the slick, coloured pages ? ! ? ! don't you dare jump ahead to the newspaper type pages. Just crumple a little harder and go on. One does what one has to, eh? ;D Yeah, pretty much. My great-grandmother grew up in a rural area before modern sanitation, and she talked about using dried corn cobs once the corn had been removed. I think that would...kinda hurt!
|
|
|
Post by km on Sept 19, 2010 19:05:51 GMT -5
That part of it isn't as gross as you might think. In my mother's youth, never mind my grandmother's there weren't disposable paper products for sanitary pads. One used rags and washed them. Same for toilet "tissue". There is a "clean" box and a "used" generally covered container with bleach water or other disinfectant. As with cloth diapers (same idea, same risk), the "used" ones are washed thoroughly and frequently. My squickies came from wondering if the family sanitary arrangements for dealing with the waste a large family inevitably produces are dealt with as cavalierly as the heating and air quality. ETA In a family with an endless progression of infants, the diaper pail could do double duty, but I'm just guessing there. Where I draw the line is with items that are going to be used by more than one person. I have a few reusable panty liners, and I may cloth diaper when/if I have kids, but I would never dream of having a "family paper" arrangement or cloth pads that are shared among mother and daughters. If only one person is using an item, and it's not washed with anyone else's stuff, there's little potential for disease transmission. Making items that have held bodily fluids communal is just gross. Yes. It's like sharing underwear. Which we wouldn't really do.
|
|
|
Post by km on Sept 2, 2010 20:08:08 GMT -5
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.... Whoa... Why are you being so defensive about this? We are having a pretty general discussion here, and you're making it about you and the poor families from your church and what big leeches you feel that they are. So, why are you helping them then? Duty? I was trying to think of how to say something about "blessed are the poor" and "whatever you have done unto the least of these" and "I was hungry and you gave me food" and turning over the tables of the moneychangers and hanging out with prostitutes and other unsavory people and "set the captives free" (in, I do believe, a completely literal, non-metaphorical manner--Jesus was someone who made the colonial powers and other powers that be of his time profoundly nervous)... I was thinking about those things, and then I thought that everything you're saying is precisely why I haven't gone to church in years. Because these are the things that seem least important to most Christians--or that are only important as long as no one actually needs too much... And how I live in a middle class area where everyone is more Middle Class than anything else, and they'll give to WorldVision and Save the Children and all, but they don't want to see unsavory poor folk actually showing up at the church door. But that these things--this kind of transformative work that Christians were asked to do--is the only point I can see of actually being involved in a church. I can have Strictly Delineated Boundaries and Professional Discussions and Middle Class Manners in my work life and public life and actually in life in general. But the whole "they'll know we are Christians by our love" and people who actually help each other in tangible ways and have vibrant communities of people who actually love each other and are not merely living out their "duties..." These are all things I could get behind. Which is maybe why cults are so attractive to so many people. We think this is what we're getting, but it turns out to be a whole lot less safe than we'd believed at first.
|
|
|
Post by km on Sept 2, 2010 16:47:49 GMT -5
Sometimes when you meet homeschooled teens they do seem refreshing and adults are often impressed because they seem more adult in their conversations. One reason for that is they have NO culture of their own generation.. they are just little replicas of their parent's interests and values. This is not true across the board. The homeschoolers I have interacted with in two largish homeschool groups in both AZ and MO were not replicas of their parents. They were easy to talk to because they knew HOW. And the reason they knew how was because they are talked to by adults. They get lots of practice. I can't speak for everyone but when I was growing up my friends' parents were mostly gone and when they were around they weren't initiating conversation with us. Untrue again. It would be pretty difficult to cut someone off "completely". I speak from experience. When we were in our most isolationist phase my 13yo daughter came home from WalMart one day and played "American Pie" on her guitar because she heard it over the speakers and figured out the chords! My kids definitely experience the "current culture their peers enjoy" because homeschoolers have their own culture. I am not speaking of complete cultish isolationists. You referred to homeschoolers as a whole and that is what I am addressing. Almost ALL of my kids' homeschool friends have a Facebook account and use it. These kids know quite a bit about current trends and they also have their own quirky things you may not see in the local public school. But, from what I remember, that happened in public school too. Every once in awhile you'd find some kid that latched onto something from a previous generation and ran with it. Several or many other kids would find that interesting as well and they'd spend that school year wear trench coats or $1 flip-flops. I know many homeschool alumni friends. They experienced things I did not and if they are all together they may reminisce about it. Then I am the odd one out. What's wrong with that? Eventually everyone grows up and can choose whether to leave. I don't think that this social stunting is found only on homeschool circles. All of us know about the loser adults that never leave home just because they have a codependent relationship with their mother. Or the guy/gal that hides behind a computer screen all day while missing out on life. If your argument is that all kids should have the same experience growing up then you need to address all those kids in private Jewish schools or Catholic schools. What about people that immigrate? Should they have to watch so many hours of Brady Bunch before they can enter the country? For all the whining folks do about individuality and freedom of choice I'm hearing a pretty loud message about conformity and fitting in on this thread. Seriously? Of all the issues that people have with fundamentalism and religiosity I think loss of teen culture should be the least of their worries. You know... It is apparent that this touched a nerve, but arietty did not suggest that this was true of all homeschooled teenagers. She said "sometimes..."
|
|
|
Post by km on Sept 1, 2010 22:04:11 GMT -5
My brother finds this to be so true! His girlfriend keeps mentioning different bands and songs that were all the rage during our time, but my brother is only hearing them for the first time. All the things that she talks about when it comes to culture is completely alien to my brother. He has nothing in common with her in those older years. I deliberately spent my time in college "catching up" on the youth I should have had. I listened to all the 80s and 90s pop songs I could find. I Googled every out-of-place comment from my peers to find out the context. I watched all the TV shows my peers talked about. It took me, in the end, three years to learn. But the result is priceless: not having all eyes turn to me in disbelief when I fail to laugh at a cultural reference I don't get, not feeling like an awkward alien unable to read between the lines of a foreign language. Now I can just fake it: pretend the first time I listened to the Barenaked Ladies was in 1998, not 2008. I know that I wasn't completely over-sheltered like this for my entire childhood, but certainly I was for some of it. I've gone back and watched some things as an adult, and I always find the experience to be a little...disappointing. When you watch Dirty Dancing as an adult, for example, you feel like all you got was a campy B-movie experience... And Star Wars isn't nearly as thrilling for my twenty-first century eyes as it must have been for my peers who saw it as young children. And pop music from my young childhood... That's what I don't know... Many of my peers have fond memories of rocking out to David Bowie and George Michael and... We listened to Psalty the Singing Songbook records and tapes. Anyone else around here remember one Charity Churchmouse? It's the stuff that people my age remember most nostalgically--the things that were big when they were very young children and adolescents. Those were the things I missed.
|
|
|
Post by km on Sept 1, 2010 19:38:52 GMT -5
What I think is, that every situation has to be examined on its own merits-- or lack thereof. Some of us have experienced churches that have not considered us "worthy" to receive needed aid, because we didn't toe the party line. Others have experienced having our charity milked dry by people like Humbletigger described. It's easy for emotions to get involved because of our own experiences. For myself, I read the post by Shelley C with some emotional reaction of my own. I understood that she was responding to a perceived judgmentalness against her lifestyle-- but I was having trouble not reading a reactionary judgment against mine. You see, I started out as a young married Christian with the idea that we would never go in debt. So when we couldn't afford new tires for the car, we just didn't buy them. Until we slid off the road in a surprise snowstorm and were nearly killed-- and the highway patrolmen said that if we'd drive to the next town and immediately buy new tires, he wouldn't give us a ticket, but our tires were dangerous to ourselves and others and we ought to have been ashamed of ourselves to have been driving around that way. So we went in debt for tires. And the next time we needed something we couldn't afford, we went in debt again. And now, after the loss of my husband's job and three years of student loans that were inadequate to meet our daily needs, we have more credit card debt than we should. And we started out with the idea that our kids would never go to daycare or public schools. But we've never been able to afford private Christian schools, and I've NEEDED to work our entire marriage. So no homeschooling for us. I can make a lot more money as a paralegal than I ever could doing one of those home businesses. And I love my job. And it turned out that there were good, quality daycares that the kids enjoyed, and that the public schools here are high-quality, with dedicated teachers and a strong curriculum. So practicality has won out. We could have been like the family Humbletigger describes, and hoped and prayed that other people would support us in living an idealogical lifestyle that made no practical sense. But it seemed to us that being self-supporting (even if incurring debt) was more in accordance with our Christian principles. I can really, really relate to this, KR. I was feeling the same kind of reactionary judgment against my lifestyle--which honestly has more in common with yours... And I'm grateful that you said this more gracefully than I could have.
|
|
|
Post by km on Aug 29, 2010 22:12:33 GMT -5
Thanks, Nikita, for what you say in the first three paragraphs. Per the last one: I mean, do you really think poor people are like the people on Maury Povich (who are mostly paid actors)? No no no no... Court shows. You know, where they're on welfare and section eight but somehow managed to buy the $500 smartphone and then signed up their last unemployed boyfriend they'd only known for two weeks who then ran up a $2000 cell phone bill with downloads and ring tones and now refuses to pay for it and has moved on but with whom they have a child (number five) although they are now pregnant with baby number six from the even newer boyfriend who they met at a club four months ago. Etc. And none of them are working. These aren't paid actors. These are their actual lives. They're just trying to get the delinquent cell phone bill paid (or the 'loan' for new rims the boyfriend insisted was a necessity) and have filed a small claims case to try to get paid back. The details of their lives comes up in the telling of their case. Them, I am frustrated about. Hmmkay, but again... How much of the poor population of North America is really represented by people shameless enough to go on court shows? I don't watch these, but from what you're saying... Fair enough, but is this really widespread enough to constitute a serious social problem?
|
|
|
Post by km on Aug 29, 2010 22:02:04 GMT -5
We have what our foremothers didn't have: available and (mostly) reliable BC. We no longer live in a society in which many children die young. In most families, the number of children born is equal to the number of children that grow to adulthood (I mean families in the developed/western countries since that's my experience). I'm uncomfortable in many ways about considering having children as a "right". I think everyone would be better served by considering having children as a privilege. I don't mean that there should be child-bearing licenses or anything, but more of a change in attitudes, so that children have the best chance of being born to people who have considered the quality of life they will have. It's not an income or class issue - children can be loved and well-cared for or abused and neglected at any income level. Responsibility rather than entitlement? Sometimes, despite all the best planning in the world and all the best forethought and planning, we can find ourselves in the worst of circumstances. So a family could have ample means at one point, and due to one catastrophic or even a not so catastrophic event, a family could find themselves in bad shape and unable to provide for themselves. Life is funny that way. I've seen patients come in to hospitals and even into hospice, surprised by illness that they didn't anticipate, something that could not be avoided for all the planning in the world. Our world economy is unstable, and many people who would have never dreamed of being without means are hard pressed financially. Or consider divorce, too. Who plans when they marry and have their babes to be prepared for the hardships of doing so without one's spouse one day? (Not that people should bank on divorce or anything, but it is another example of how life doesn't always unfold in the way that we planned.) And some people get pregnant despite taking many measures (save abstinence) to prevent pregnancy, and that is certainly not an exercise of poor judgment or irresponsibility. I think that the real issue involves the "one size fits all" solutions and pigeon holes that QF/patriocentricity tries to prescribe for all people, whether that means how many children to have and how to provide for those children. Most people subscribe to these belief systems because they present solutions to difficult problems and answers to questions that are hard to address. They seem to make things easier, and people don't have to think as hard about things. Part of not thinking is the subtle and unspoken idea that one does not have to bear full moral responsibility for things if certain decisions are made for them. Sometimes this is helpful (I always think of the ABCs of CPR which, in a pinch in any clinical setting, this rule is always paramount and superceedes all others for decision making. But the ABC's of CPR don't help me figure out how to get charting done and the rest of my routine patient care completed!) And some things involve ongoing decision making and the bearing of the responsibility and accountability that comes with doing the work. My point is that there are no blanket answers, and we should not be quick to pass moral judgments on individuals. Individuals are messy and never really conform to the mean or the averages or the set norms. One woman might have lots of children and can provide for them well, never having want. Another woman can have lots of children and might not do so well keeping up in terms of both care and resources. And some families may have had means at one point, and they might later have want. It is one thing to state principles -- and I think the central ones are that it is wrong to shrug personal responsibility, common sense and balance off in favor of following a static rule written by someone else. We are all different and all have different baggage. We have different strengths, weaknesses, circumstances and experiences. I love the book mark my mother carried in her Bible that quoted a Native American proverb to never judge another man until and unless you'd traveled a mile in their shoes. Cindy: THANK YOU. To your point about having an unstable world economy, I would add that we also have an unjust one, and yes... More and more people are finding themselves in unstable financial situations and finding that they need assistance. And thank you for pointing out the judgmental tone of much of this thread--I think that's what I'm objecting to most of all (along with stereotypes and generalizations about what it's like to be poor--and what poor people themselves are like). We simply cannot know for sure whether or not we'll fall into poverty from one day to the next, and the past two years should have made that amply clear to us all. ETA: I would add, by the way, that as much as everyone is insisting that this isn't about race or class... Of course it is about these things. When "welfare queens" and "abusing the system" and all of these phrases enter into a discussion, it's never not about race and class. Also, what exactly constitutes "being able to provide for a child"? Beyond food, shelter, clothing... Should a parent be required to cover college education? Graduate school? We are all going to have different ideas about what parents should provide for their children. I hope we can all agree that we have a system that makes it very, very easy to descend into conversations that blame the poor for being poor. It happens all the time, but it would make much more sense to me to delineate structural problems and failures than what I'm seeing happen now--that is, people judging women whom we have decided have too many children.
|
|
|
Post by km on Aug 29, 2010 21:55:08 GMT -5
I agree that the choice shouldn't be legislated away. However, I strongly believe that the responsible choice for the individual is not to have children that one cannot support. And I don't see getting to have the size of family that you want as any sort of right. It irks me that this is seen as "oh the poor mother, she's just trying to get by, she deserves to have children", while OTOH, it's NOT a free choice for me not to support her and her children. And if I could choose not to support irresponsibility, I'd be slammed on here for being non-compassionate. We have what our foremothers didn't have: available and (mostly) reliable BC. We no longer live in a society in which many children die young. In most families, the number of children born is equal to the number of children that grow to adulthood (I mean families in the developed/western countries since that's my experience). I'm uncomfortable in many ways about considering having children as a "right". I think everyone would be better served by considering having children as a privilege. I don't mean that there should be child-bearing licenses or anything, but more of a change in attitudes, so that children have the best chance of being born to people who have considered the quality of life they will have. It's not an income or class issue - children can be loved and well-cared for or abused and neglected at any income level. Responsibility rather than entitlement? I think I like what you're saying. Changes in attitudes are great... Legal prohibitions on child-bearing not so great.
|
|
|
Post by km on Aug 29, 2010 21:53:08 GMT -5
I think everyone is making really good points (about the being able to support kids thing particularly). I would also point out that it is important to remember that NLQ exists for the purpose of providing a place for people coming out of a patriarchal and quiverfull world view and that often that means that there are lots of children involved in that exodus. I don't want anyone here to get the feeling that they are being accused or condemned for having fallen prey to that particular world view (with its resultant large family size), and who then requires assistance from the government or others when trying to extricate themselves and get back on their feet. I feel pretty certain that no one here is talking about the women and children (and men if it applies) in that particular quagmire. You guys are what I am happy to be paying into the system to support and you'd be foolish not to take any benefit that is offered to you in your effort to establish a new life for yourselves with all that involves. I too am frustrated, however, by the women who feel the need to give a baby to every guy they date, use no birth control and act as though they have no idea how they got pregnant but don't seem to really care either. There is a virtual parade of them on the daytime court shows. (And it cost me right there to admit I sometimes watch those, btw ) Thanks, Nikita, for what you say in the first three paragraphs. Per the last one: I mean, do you really think poor people are like the people on Maury Povich (who are mostly paid actors)?
|
|
|
Post by km on Aug 29, 2010 21:50:26 GMT -5
But, honestly? I think the women who do the kinds of things you're talking about are very, very rare. Because it's not a system that engenders a middle-class lifestyle, not by a longshot. I grew up very, VERY poor in Flint, MI, in the late 80s-early 90s. Flint, at the time (and even now, to a certain extent), was considered one of the poorest and worst cities in America. I can only speak of that time frame but “playing the system” was not rare. Not at all. No, welfare does not get you to a middle class lifestyle, but people in my neighborhood rarely tried for “middle class” because it was so beyond their ability to reach (without putting years and years of time and effort into it) The easiest way to “make a living”, so to speak, in my old neighborhood was to a have a boatload of kids. Section 8 will pay your rent, food stamps will buy your family’s food (well, the meals that aren‘t supplied to your kids for free by the schools or summer/after school programs), and welfare will buy anything else. I’ve known more than a few women and kids on welfare who lived a lot easier lives than many Quiverfull families. I know the kind of abuse that welfare faces. The house across the street from me growing up had a large extended living in it. One was a single mother with three minor children- two small girls and a teenage boy. She was a part-time prostitute, but did not claim that money when it came to applying for welfare. Her teenage son, who did not work or go to school, got a girl pregnant, who was living with them with the baby. The teenage girl also got welfare for her infant. Living with all those were the prostitute mother’s sister and her boyfriend (who was a drug dealer and the prostitute’s pimp) They had two small children they were getting welfare and disability checks for (they didn’t claim the money from the drugs or the prostitution) At the time my family moved out of the neighborhood, the sister was pregnant with a third child and was regularly doing drugs specifically because she and her boyfriend wanted to child to be born with disabilities, so that they could get disability checks for that kid too. Now- that level of abuse of the system is not the norm, but it does put into perspective the fact that “having lots of children so you can get higher welfare payments” does not have the same stigma is all communities. To some, it’s just making a living and what's "very, very rare" is actually much, much worse. And how old are you? I think you probably aren't considering how much things have changed since Welfare Reform... Also, I'm not sure various kinds of criminality are "playing the system." They're just...criminality. Certainly, it's possible to get rich via involvement in illegal trafficking of any kind, but I think it's wrong to conflate this as another side of the same problem. They're two different things. And if prostitution were regulated and all, by god, it'd be possible to claim it...
|
|
|
Post by km on Aug 29, 2010 21:46:49 GMT -5
But, honestly? I think the women who do the kinds of things you're talking about are very, very rare. Because it's not a system that engenders a middle-class lifestyle, not by a longshot. I suspect there are a few, but I would be willing to bet that they are so few and far between that they don't put a significant strain on the system. Which is pretty much what I was saying. Though working under the table while on welfare or even SSI is more common than you might think. You didn't have to be black to feel the sting. They created a stigma that is still present to this day for anyone who needs welfare to get back on their feet, often while fleeing an abusive relationship. I know that this is true, but having gotten assistance in the state of Connecticut not that long ago... I'll just say that I know that my level of education and my whiteness got me through the process quite a lot more easily than many others. I did experience stigma, yeah, but I saw most people around me treated much worse.
|
|
|
Post by km on Aug 29, 2010 18:40:34 GMT -5
I think there's also a huge difference between criticizing the life choices of someone when they impact children's well being, and legislating their choice away. Expressing our opinions here won't prevent impoverished QF families from having more children if that's what they want to do. Though a few might think it over and realize their children are suffering and delay having another child. That's still their free choice. Yeah, okay, fair enough.
|
|
|
Post by km on Aug 29, 2010 18:39:46 GMT -5
But, honestly? I think the women who do the kinds of things you're talking about are very, very rare. Because it's not a system that engenders a middle-class lifestyle, not by a longshot. I suspect there are a few, but I would be willing to bet that they are so few and far between that they don't put a significant strain on the system.
And I'm not referring to the career criminals/scammers who do put a strain on the system when they commit medicare fraud.
"Welfare queen" is a right-wing racist dogwhistle that was trumped by by the Republicans of the '80's to demonize black single mothers. That's my main criticism of it.
|
|
|
Post by km on Aug 29, 2010 18:26:46 GMT -5
Furthermore, I think this rhetoric sounds very close to far-right rhetoric about "welfare queens" who shouldn't "keep having children that they can't afford.". Okay, I ask this as a very, very liberal person- since when did it become a bad thing to think people should only have as many kids as they can afford? You don't have to be far-right or stigmatize people on welfare as "welfare queens" to think that those who continue to have children while on assistance are irresponsible and misusing the system. I'm not sure, though, because from one very progressive person to another... Does being pro-choice end when I think it's unwise for someone to continue having children? I don't think that it does. ETA: But here's the other thing... QF people are a very, very small subset of the overall population. There are simply not enough of them to put a strain on the public system. But this is the very same argument that is usually turned on women of color. I've mentioned before that I come from a state in which a secretive state program forcibly sterilized both women of color and women with disabilities well into the 1970's. I have a really hard time with social arguments about "limiting your children" in general because I know that this is where they ultimately lead (and where they led not long ago at all). Not to majority-white groups like QF, not by a long shot. But to women or color and women with disabilities. I'm not against arguments about personal responsibility, but I think it's wrong that vulnerable populations are the ones who suffer the consequences of these arguments. And, when it comes down to it, I'm pro-choice just as much because I believe in the rights of all women women to plan and have children even if they are not middle class women... And, yes, as much as the Octomom might get on my nerves, I still believe this. If a friend asked my advice on this kind of issue, I'd probably advise against it. But I'll never support social policies that restrict these things. When you come from the South, memories of where these kinds of policies lead are much more in the forefront of your mind.
|
|
|
Post by km on Aug 29, 2010 17:42:11 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. Well, that's the first time anyone has ever called me gentle...
|
|
|
Post by km on Aug 29, 2010 15:12:40 GMT -5
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. Furthermore, I think this rhetoric sounds very close to far-right rhetoric about "welfare queens" who shouldn't "keep having children that they can't afford." Assistance has nothing to do with whether or not we deem someone to be "worthy" or enough "like us." And someone who is entrenched in QF (as I think Madame was pointing out) is not going to be easily moved by arguments about practicality or common sense. The whole mindset flies in the face of practicality and common sense. I think Madame was in part pointing out that many of us who decry this practice as "stupid" are not all that far-removed from the ideology ourselves. And I can understand your frustration with the system that put your friend in this situation, but I can also see how what you said could seem a little harsh to people who have recently left the lifestyle (or who are still involved in it.).
|
|
|
Post by km on Aug 29, 2010 15:04:02 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. Huh? I'm not assuming anything about you or your church--or whether or not it teaches prosperity ideology. Only that a lot of people who come to this forum have been exposed to this kind of thinking. I think Madame felt that you were dismissive of the woman's fears of welfare stigma, and I can understand how she could have read that from you (though I now think from what you've said that this isn't what you meant). The point I'm making about liberation theology has absolutely nothing to do with small churches and their lack of resources. It's a larger claim about how the Christian church--which is, as a whole, quite wealthy in North America--has failed to uphold the things that appear to have been most important to the Jesus of the Gospels. I do think Madame was making a much more general point like this one, and not one about you or your specific church. I think you're talking past each other in that she's making general claims that have nothing to do with you about the state of Christianity in North America--and you are reading injunctions for your specific church into what she says. These general claims have to do with too many Christians having become comfortable with their wealth--and not taking the words of Jesus very seriously. I think this is very true for many of us who have been exposed to extremely conservative variants of Christianity--there can sometimes be more interest in God's take on consuming shellfish than in what the New Testament says about wealth and riches and the poor. And I think it's absolutely crucial to call these Christians to account for their negligence. I also think she's making a theological point while you're making a practical one, and I think the issue is that you're talking past each other (and not necessarily disagreeing). This isn't to say that, if the church did what it should, we wouldn't need welfare. I think it's about as useful to use Christianity to determine public policy as it is to use Christianity to judge science (which is to say, not at all). But I have a big problem with the way in which the church attends to the poor (or for that matter, attends to the "release of the captive" or "[setting] the prisoner free." I think the claims about social justice in the New Testament are almost never taken seriously enough. And part of that, I think, is the conservative Church's resistance to government assistance (which directly hurts the poor).
|
|
|
Post by km on Aug 29, 2010 12:48:41 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.
|
|
|
Post by km on Aug 28, 2010 15:53:30 GMT -5
Wait, huh? The McDonalds were married to other people before they married each other? Wow... That's...surprising.
|
|
|
Post by km on Aug 28, 2010 15:06:09 GMT -5
No, I did not know that... Huh... Well, I mean, I'm kinda glad the girl was able to break the betrothal, I guess... And not shunned or anything.
|
|
|
Post by km on Aug 28, 2010 14:40:49 GMT -5
Oh. My. God. I am reading the list of courtship questions discussed in the post Erika linked: yoursacredcalling.com/blog/courtship-questions-for-potential-suitors/I, um... Wow. Speechless. For example: "# Our family subscribes to the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Shorter and Larger Catechisms as our statement of faith. To what creed or confession do you subscribe? Do you take issue with any part of the Westminster Standards? If so, what? # We are members of the CPC – a reformed Presbyterian denomination. Please read through the Constitution and Form of Church Government I sent earlier and let me know if you disagree with any part of these documents." And it goes on and on...and on... Isn't that list insane??? I posted it on my LiveJournal and a bunch of my friends answered the questions and posted them and it was HILARIOUS! Of course, it was all snarky. One of my friends said: "Do you have goldfish? If so, have they been baptised according the to Westminster Confession, or do you consider that to be unnecessary since they are constantly in water anyway?" I about bust a lung laughing. Yeah, that's pretty good. This McDonald crap is...even worse than the first List of Questions that I was ever introduced to--the one by Greg Harris...
|
|