<p>Purity rings, children not being educated for college (the eldest Duggar boy seems to have foregone his prior goal of college/law school as he now works in used car sales), women’s primary role as wombs…discuss.</p>
<p>‘quiverfull’ sounds like something out of harry potter although i’m sure that statement is sacreligious since harry potter is evil witchcraft.</p>
<p>the worst part about this is that the kids have no chance to be exposed to anything else with the homeschooling, etc, ugh…and hearing the ethno-orientalism of the women advocating for these disempowering principles.</p>
<p>it is with good reason that i worry about christian fundamentalists and, especially, dominionists.</p>
<p>Years ago in my home schooling support group were moms who believed their children should be taught to question authority and be critical thinkers, exposed to as many world views as possible, question everything they read or saw on TV, tried to avoid censorship as much as was age appropriate and if censorship was necessary explained ad nauseam the reasoning behind parental prohibitions. And then there were moms whose parenting style I probably shouldn’t try to explain but they lived like the Duggars. Sometimes the two groups did shared enrichment activities and there were never any problems because all the children (still elementary school age) were expected to be respectful of others and no political discussions ever came up in that context, except that all the moms were insistent that we should be allowed to raise our children however we wanted without state or societal interference – except in the case of abuse. I remember at that time one of my home schooling buddies confessing to me over coffee she had just realized she had a lot more in common with the fundamentalist moms in the support group than the mainstream democrats living in her neighborhood. She was a home birthing, extended nursing, unschooling SAHM who did worry sometimes that her unsympathetic suburban neighbors might send DHS to her door. While it isn’t my style I admire everything I’ve seen and read about the Duggars.</p>
<p>In my opinion, it is “feminist” to raise your family as you judge best. If you want to talk brainwashing, I don’ t think any of us is unaffected; it just what kind of brainwashing you approve.</p>
<p>I found the ideas in this article fascinating. However, it left some questions unanswered. If the Quiverfull advocates believe that matters of conception and birth should be left to a higher power, do they also believe in the use of modern medicine? Why not leave matters of death to a higher power as well?</p>
<p>DougBetsy, my complaint with a woman like Michelle Duggar is not the choices she has made for herself, but those that she has made for her children, especially her daughters. </p>
<p>What if one of them DIDN’T want a “courtship” (with no pre-marital kissing) or wanted to go to college? What if one didn’t want to “buddy” raise her younger siblings, but wanted to play team basketball or study art or AP history within the local (non Quiverfull) community? What if one didn’t want to do ALL the laundry and cooking for 20 people, but go to movies and hang out with kids her own age? What if she wanted some choices of her own, but was so indoctrinated in the Quiverfull lifestyle that she didn’t even realize there WERE other choices for women?</p>
<p>We all make choices for our children, and choices that affect our children; that’s part and parcel to parenting. My kid doesn’t want to do all his own laundry – there are other things he’d prefer doing – but he still has to wash his clothes or live with the consequences. Some might say I’m “indoctrinating” him to do “women’s work.” I can live with that! :D</p>
<p>That said, I find it of more than passing interest that the leaders of this movement are women who are obviously doing paid work instead of parenting; did their husbands command them to write the books and lead the movement? I’m thinking… not. They should be at home caring for their husbands and kids, not writing books, appearing on talk shows, and speaking in public, right?</p>
<p>Am also wondering about the use of modern medicine in these circles. If they are not leaving healing in God’s hands, I think I’d have to call them hypocrites.</p>
<p>From the article: “Children are our ammunition in the spiritual realm to whip the enemy!”</p>
<p>What lovely imagery – children as ammo to “whip the enemy.” A fundamentalist’s dream: an “us” against a “them.”</p>
<p>Marriage, family, raising kids all are personal decisions. I don’t know of any set method that gives any guaranteed results or works well with all kids. I have seen kids come out of these fundamentalist households who do very well in the setting with other kids and who do end up going to top schools. I also see them doing very well going to small fundamental colleges. The ones who do not end up going to college seem to me to be better adjusted than some of our kids who do not go to college or drop out. Since the expectation is not there, no one is disappointed, and those kids tend to find their way without the additional schooling. </p>
<p>However, I’ve seen a lot of kids who have been a lot of trouble in those household. Drugs, sex, drinking, crime is not unknown. They rear their ugly heads everywhere.</p>
<p>That’s nothing new.<br>
Maybe Amish kids want electric lights, not candles.
Maybe Conservative Jewish girls want to wear jeans, not skirts.
Maybe Muslim girls want to uncover their heads and faces.
Maybe the neighbor boy wants to dance rather than be groomed for an NCAA scholarship.
Maybe pretty toddlers want puppies, not pagents.<br>
Maybe (gasp) all our kids want trade school, not college. </p>
<p>Parents make choices and decisions about the religious and societal aspects of their kids’ lives. It’s not for us to judge.</p>
<p>There have been articles in recent years about daughters of career moms opting to stay home with their own children. We can never count on getting it right where our daughters are concerned imho.</p>
<p>One thing that caught my eye was that successful Quiverfull families fathered by “men of means” like Jim Bob Duggar (author’s words) are the ones who are showcased, yet there are many other Quiverfull families existing near poverty, struggling to care for their large brood on extremely limited resources (and government support). The article also pointed out that because the mothers are caught in an exhausting cycle of pregnancy, breastfeeding, and wrangling toddlers, the extra work falls to the older daughters who learn early in life that theirs is a life of domestic work. </p>
<p>Sorry, but wearing a headscarf of skirt is not exactly the same as being a lifelong broodmare, especially when these women cannot care for their own children without enlisting the mothering assistance of their own daughters. </p>
<p>And as to message #10, those daughters made the choice to do things differently than their mothers. It was their choice. I am commenting on the older Duggar girls (and others from the Quiverfull) who do not have those, or any, choices.</p>
<p>^^Allmusic, while I sympathize with your concerns and agree these young women may not have as many “opportunities” as we would raise our own daughters with, it doesn’t necessarily follow to me they don’t have choices and can’t make the decision to leave this lifestyle if they so choose… just as our daughters could choose to follow the quiverful lifestyle when grown but might have so real catching up learning to do with regard to homemaking skills. Please understand I find this a rather fascinating discussion and am in no way attacking you personally!</p>
<p>Also, Amish kids get “rumspringa” a period where they can go out and experience the larger community, drive cars, use electricity, wear modern clothes, etc. After rumspringa, they get to decide if they want to commit to the Amish church/lifestyle. I don’t think the Duggars (maybe other quiverfull kids, I’m not sure) are allowed to do anything like that. I don’t think it’s good if kids are never exposed to anything different than their own lifestyle.</p>
<p>I’ve always wondered how many of those raised within a religious subculture stay within it.</p>
<p>My impression is few leave.</p>
<p>For example, I watched a documentary about the Amish (I think it was “The Devil’s Playground”) and I believe that the vast majority of those brought up Amish join the church.</p>
<p>Of course, with only an 8th grade education, how much choice do they have?</p>
<p>I also have a high school classmate who has a Pentecostal, Creationist, homeschooling (for religious reasons) family. </p>
<p>I also got the impression from her that most raised that way remain within the faith.</p>
<p>If you have been raised in a strictly authoritarian lifestyle and have been taught that there is only one correct way to live, I suspect it is difficult to even know what you would like to do with your life, much less leave the fold in order to do it.</p>
<p>Edited as I cross-posted with prefect: “The Devil’s Playground” is about “rumspringa.”</p>
<p>I think one idea that kept coming up in the geeps’ “LAC for a conservative kid” thread was whether “conservatives” believe “liberals” honestly expose their kids to different lifestyles other than their own.</p>
<p>If someone zapped me back in time to the age of 15 (with all my life experiences intact) I’d have a real hard time deciding between the quiverfull lifestyle and the “enlightened” career mom lifestyle. Both have their attractions imho.</p>
<p>Having 18 children is relatively synonymous with “broodmare”. It isn’t a title for every woman or every mother (heck, then I would be one too), but for a woman who has spent twenty years pregnant or nursing—it fits pretty well.</p>
<p>Nope, it’s out of Trollope, not Rowling. The Rev. Quiverful was a devout clergyman who was unable to support his huge family on his meager income. From “The Warden” as I recall.</p>
<p>From my limited experience watching this show, I believe the parents to be doing an excellent job with their children. They seem happy and centered. The only “judgement” I will make about their decision to forgo family planning and avoid birth control is to worry about this: if every couple did as they did, there is no doubt the world would be in a lot of trouble due to overpopulation. How can they advocate this belief system in this day and age if they know how harmful it would be? In some ways it seems selfish not to look beyond their own desires and/or their own interpretation of the Bible. I’m sure they would say that God would work miracles and provide for everyone, but I think God gave us a rational mind to predict what would happen if “everyone did” something. On the other hand, if the context for their belief system is to win a spiritual war, the stakes would seem far higher than mere environmental degradation or, indeed, than the extinction of the human race.</p>