Maxwell Corner: Stay at home adult daughters

[daisyjane1234]

Steve and Terri have posted their Jan '14 Mom's/Dad's Corner on the topic of stay at home adult daughters. No surprises in this post where they respond, or should I say Steve responds, to a question on the subject posed by a reader.

 

Steve (and Terri's?) responses state the following:

 

1) Their adult daughters stay at home and refrain from working outside the home by choice. They do not address the issue of how they might respond should one of their daughters wish to pursue employment or education outside the home. Their daughters desire the protection and safety of home and will remain there until marriage. This means that they will likely remain at home until they die since Steve and Terri have apparently made provisions that the house remains for their use upon their death.

 

2) Should they pass away their daughters have sufficient marketable skills to support themselves. (Ummm. Sure).

 

3) When Steve and Terri became parents they chose to have Terri remain at home. They then decided they "desired" this for their grandchildren as well.

 

4) Their daughters are not isolated, but rather have ample opportunity to engage in relationships and activities outside the home.

 

I think #3 is the one that most bothers me. The idea that they made choices for their own family is fine. Dysfunctional. Borderline abusive. Controlling as hell. But fine. The idea that they made choices on behalf of their future daughters-in-law annoys the crap out of me. I know. I know. Steve would only have allowed his sons to meet and marry women who would totally agree to such a proposal. But I always thought their sons had some degree of autonomy once they left they left the home. Perhaps not as much as we think?

 

The other part that annoys me is the fact that despite Steve asserting that his daughters are not-isolated/sheltered/controlled their voice is never allowed to weigh in on the topic of their own life. These daughters are adult in age only.

[Tangy Bee]

Protection from what?? I just will never understand this whole "protection" thing with fundies. Steve is NOT the Chuck Norris type! I bet they don't even have a gun. If the ladies just want to stay at home, fine. But the fact that they feel they need protecting worries me. The fathers from the Serven, Morton, and Sanders families are getting up there in age. I just don't see how they are capable of "physically" protecting their daughters. Do they mean "emotional" protection?

[Coconut Flan]

I take it to mean spiritual protection from the evils of being out in the world without a censor.

[SamuraiKatz]

The FBI profilers would have a field day trying to figure Stevehovah out. He is a sick twisted man who has managed to pass his twisted mental illness on to his sons.

[FloraKitty35]

Stevehovah is nothing more than a mentally ill religious fanatic.

[Jana814]

Stevehovah is nothing more than a mentally ill religious fanatic.

Agree!!

[Jezebel]

Steve and Terri have posted their Jan '14 Mom's/Dad's Corner on the topic of stay at home adult daughters. No surprises in this post where they respond, or should I say Steve responds, to a question on the subject posed by a reader.

Steve (and Terri's?) responses state the following:

1) Their adult daughters stay at home and refrain from working outside the home by choice.

But how did they reach that choice, Steve?

They do not address the issue of how they might respond should one of their daughters wish to pursue employment or education outside the home.

ETA: Of course not. That would imply that their daughters might not be 100% happy with their roles at home. And since they've built their brand on the idea that college is a harmful environment and higher education is unnecessary, and that working for an employer outside of the immediate family is bad for men, and that women's God-assigned place is at home, where is there room for a daughter to even bring up the desire to pursue those things?

Their daughters desire the protection and safety of home and will remain there until marriage.

Well, we already know that Steve Maxwell is a liar and a deceiver, so I'll just see how thin I can slice this bologna:

Protection from whom? Safety from what?

And how did the Maxwell kids come to see the wider world as so dangerous in the first place? Who gave them those ideas? Who failed to reassure them that their fears were unlikely to come true? Who failed to model a good life that balanced ease in the wider world and professional success with family warmth and togetherness and being a genuine disciple of Christ? Who failed to give their children a quality education that would expand their range of options in life and allow them to fully use their God-given talents? And who failed to give them the emotional and mental strength to deal with any challenges or dangers life might throw at them?

Yeah, I'm looking at you, Steve (and Terri, who is no innocent).

If the Maxwell girls see themselves as so in need of protection and safety at home, it's because Steve and Terri did such a good job of filling them with fear of the outside world, and doubts about their own abilities to lead decent, godly lives without 24/7 surveillance to hold them accountable. That's hardly a "choice."

And in the unlikely event one of them was brave enough to face all that ingrained fear and choose to leave home to lead a different kind of life--get an education worth a damn, become a missionary, get a job in a bakery, start a sewing business of her own, make friends you haven't pre-approved, attend a church and listen to a pastor of her own choosing--what would the consequences be? If a Maxwell daughter chose to step out of the SAHD role without marrying, followed her own calling, used her talents to support herself, and stopped deferring to her parents, how would you deal with that, Steve? Would you embrace that and encourage her? Or would you denounce her as sinful and rebellious, and cut her off? Would you forbid her, as a "bad influence" to see her siblings? Because if there would be any sanctions against her, then staying at home is hardly a free and totally voluntary choice.

And I doubt very much that any other options for their lives beyond staying at home until marriage ever came up for discussion. They were never laid out on the table as possibilities--how could they be? That would go against the entire patriarchal, authoritarian, hypercontrolling model of family relations Steve and Terri Maxwell are trying to sell. I find it very hard to believe that none of their kids ever had a desire to go do something else and lead an independent life. But I believe Steve and Terri expected their kids to marry early enough that these questions would never come up. Little did they know how badly their plans for their kids' lives would fail.

I know that most folks at FJ sincerely hope that Sarah will get her wish for marriage, a home, and kids of her own. But honestly? I hate the idea of children being born to a mother as beat-down and subjugated as Sarah Maxwell.

This means that they will likely remain at home until they die since Steve and Terri have apparently made provisions that the house remains for their use upon their death.

I haven't gone to Tits2 to read their actual words, but that sounds like one (or all) of the boys will inherit actual ownership of the house, while the girls will merely have a life interest allowing them to live there (or in an equivalent situation) until either marriage or death. I can't imagine Steve leaving actual real estate, or power to make decisions about whether to sell it or what to do with the proceeds, to his unmarried daughters.

2) Should they pass away their daughters have sufficient marketable skills to support themselves. (Ummm. Sure).

Yeah, we discussed this in an earlier thread. They're qualified to work as office and domestic help for their brothers and their families. That's pretty much it. To say they're equipped to get paying jobs outside the family is a lie--Steve knows they aren't.

Mary might do okay with her sewing skills, but they're all so poorly educated they'd have to undergo a lot of remediation before pursuing any kind of education. So even traditionally feminine occupations such as nursing, dietetics, early childhood education, and social work are beyond their reach.

3) When Steve and Terri became parents they chose to have Terri remain at home. They then decided they "desired" this for their grandchildren as well.

This is messed up. Steve and Terri had all the possible choices open to them, they picked one, and in choosing they decided that not only their children, but their grandchildren were not to be allowed that same freedom of choice. They also got to go to college, date, meet each other in a chemistry class, and spend a lot of unchaperoned time getting to know each other before deciding to marry--yet their children and grandchildren aren't to be allowed that same freedom, the same abundance of choices.

What disgusting hypocites these people are.

4) Their daughters are not isolated, but rather have ample opportunity to engage in relationships and activities outside the home.

These are girls who don't even go for walks in the neighborhood alone, and who do so early in the morning lest they encounter the wrong sorts of people. So who are they socializing with?

As far as I can tell, it's all people their parents have approved of first. The Elderly, on Sundays. The dwindling number of neighbor ladies who come for the annual brunch. A few families who follow the Maxwell way of micromanaging their children's lives, and are thus "safe" until suspected otherwise.

Steve and Terri don't allow their children to have friends who are not parent-approved; their friends have to be friends of the entire family. And what kinds of people are Steve and Terri going to approve as friends? People just like them.

Sure, they'll engage in pleasant, superficial chat with strangers at their conferences, but it's understood that those strangers are reasonably "safe," because who else would attend? Even the chance of one of those crazy FreeJinger people showing up to cause a ruckus is small.

When the Maxwell kids each have friends of their own, that did not have to pass muster with Steve, that they can go have fun with entirely unsupervised, and without having to give a detailed report when they get home? Maybe then I might start to believe the Maxwell girls are not isolated. Until then, I refer to the fact that Steve Maxwell is a known liar.

[SamuraiKatz]

Stevehovah's latest "pronouncement" comes from a position of weakness. Their brand is suffering..

[Jezebel]

Protection from what?? I just will never understand this whole "protection" thing with fundies. Steve is NOT the Chuck Norris type! I bet they don't even have a gun. If the ladies just want to stay at home, fine. But the fact that they feel they need protecting worries me. The fathers from the Serven, Morton, and Sanders families are getting up there in age. I just don't see how they are capable of "physically" protecting their daughters. Do they mean "emotional" protection?

From my own observations, the men who make the most noise about "protecting" their daughters and keeping them "safe" are protecting them from other men just like themselves.

The more predatory a man has been toward women, the more casual a user he has been of women as sex toys, the more women he's lied to or intimidated in order to get sex from them, the more aggressive he'll be about keeping his daughter "safe." Men like that tend to assume all other men are just as callous and contemptuous of women as they are, and that they would use his daughter (his property) with as little respect. And, of course, they think back to all the women they've used, think of them as stupid and/or slutty, and can't stand the idea of their little girl (their property) in that role. So they'll tend to be very strict with their daughters about clothing and curfews and where they can go and what they can do, and they'll play intimidation games with their boyfriends.

So I look at the patriarchalists, and how they insist they must protect their daughters, and I think, "Yeah, I know what's going through your mind when you look at other men's daughters, and what you'd like to do to them. And I'll wager you've already done your share of it." I look at Steve Maxwell, and you can't tell me he wasn't a naughty, naughty boy while stationed in Thailand. All that "protection" of his daughters? He's protecting them from men who are exactly as callous and sexually predatory as himself. And since he's a narcissist (as so many of these patriarchalists are), he can't fathom that not all men are like him. He also doesn't trust his daughters not to fall for men just like him, who will use them just as he once, very likely, used other women.

[Jezebel]

Stevehovah's latest "pronouncement" comes from a position of weakness. Their brand is suffering..

Yeah, I find it really interesting that he's addressing any of these questions at all. It's practically an admission that no, their courtship model hasn't quite worked as planned.

And while some of that might be in response to us, I also wonder if many of the same points are getting brought up by their actual customer base. That Steve and Terri are doing so few conferences these days strongly suggests that interest in their message is dwindling. While the increase in homeschooling resources and books on household management and scheduling may be to blame, I don't think that's all of it. Not by far.

Steve and Terri are selling a complete lifestyle, positioning themselves as experts on how to have a perfect, godly family--and yet their way of doing things hasn't helped them get their kids married off. Sarah's a lovely young woman, well-trained for the wife-and-mother role she's been raised to perform, and there's no reason why she should still be single. Even Anna, who, by all accounts is much more attractive in person, and who seems the most relaxed and contented of the single adult kids, should have a suitor by now. But there's nobody, and the last Maxwell courtship blew up in an extremely embarrassing way.

So something is clearly wrong with the Maxwell Method of Familial Micromanagement, and I can't help but wonder how many honest questions from sympathetic followers never show up in the blog comments, or how often those questions come up at conferences. Steve can easily disregard us; we're not paying his bills, and most of the people who do would probably dismiss anything we have to say. That he and Terri are even addressing these issues in the roundabout, vague, insubstantial way they are suggests to me that their followers have finally started asking the same questions we are. Because otherwise, why bring it up at all?

[16strong]

Jezebel, what you have said is one of those things that many people spend a lifetime trying to articulate. I think you absolutely hit the nail on the head, however, it makes me even more fearful of who/what Steve really is. If he is sheltering his kids to protect them from others like him, how bad does he have to be to shelter them THAT MUCH? What kind of demons IS he hiding?

[BalconySmoker]

He's nuts if he thinks his girls could get jobs were their parents to pass away.

I managed fast food restaurants and pizza places when I was in college. There's no way I could have hired a Maxwell woman, specifically because she DOESN'T possess any skills I could use. Those are some of the most introductory level jobs on the planet, and I couldn't hire those women.

Sure they can was dishes, but could they wash dishes in pants while the cooks cuss and shout at each other in a 100 degree kitchen? No, they couldn't.

Sure they can sweep floors, but could they sweep floors while having a customer threaten to punch them for forgetting their McNuggets? No, they couldn't.

Sure they can write an order down while waiting tables, but could they waitress without evangelizing table 12 or without insisting table 5 say grace before they tear into their pizza? No, they couldn't.

I don't think that homeschooling, nor a "traditional" point of view prevents people from having marketable skills. But the Maxwellian way of life certainly does. A Maxwell woman is only ever going to be able to get a paycheck from a relative, and I think that's exactly what they were going for.

[YPestis]

I agree. The Maxwell girls may have the skills and the work ethic to clean, cook and do simple clerical work, but they'll struggle in the "real" world. It's different having to work for money. You will be expected to do things you may not want to do, work with people who are different from you and be restricted in what you can say. I doubt any of the girls will actually go out to get a job (heck, none of the guys did!).

The Maxwell girls may have the house, but utilities, property taxes, grocery money etc all still require money. I think we all know the girls, if they remain unmarried, will end up living with their brothers. It's a common fate of many unmarried women in the past. What's more, I'm starting to think that some of the Maxwell boys will also remain unmarried. What we may end up with is siblings living together, forever, as single adults, unable to marry or to see why they remain so.

[lilith]

Yeah, I find it really interesting that he's addressing any of these questions at all. It's practically an admission that no, their courtship model hasn't quite worked as planned.

And while some of that might be in response to us, I also wonder if many of the same points are getting brought up by their actual customer base. That Steve and Terri are doing so few conferences these days strongly suggests that interest in their message is dwindling. While the increase in homeschooling resources and books on household management and scheduling may be to blame, I don't think that's all of it. Not by far.

Steve and Terri are selling a complete lifestyle, positioning themselves as experts on how to have a perfect, godly family--and yet their way of doing things hasn't helped them get their kids married off. Sarah's a lovely young woman, well-trained for the wife-and-mother role she's been raised to perform, and there's no reason why she should still be single. Even Anna, who, by all accounts is much more attractive in person, and who seems the most relaxed and contented of the single adult kids, should have a suitor by now. But there's nobody, and the last Maxwell courtship blew up in an extremely embarrassing way.

So something is clearly wrong with the Maxwell Method of Familial Micromanagement, and I can't help but wonder how many honest questions from sympathetic followers never show up in the blog comments, or how often those questions come up at conferences. Steve can easily disregard us; we're not paying his bills, and most of the people who do would probably dismiss anything we have to say. That he and Terri are even addressing these issues in the roundabout, vague, insubstantial way they are suggests to me that their followers have finally started asking the same questions we are. Because otherwise, why bring it up at all?

They have been called out pretty explicitly for over sheltering on two Christian blogs in the last year - the Pearls and the one recently quoted on Patheos. Their over sheltering is also mentioned by professing Christians in their amazon reviews. I'm sure that lots of comments about it come in and aren't published. My guess is that they hope by addressing it people will stop asking.

[ILoveJellybeans]

Its not a choice if they've been taught that there is only one acceptable answer to the questions of whether they like living at home and whether they want to stay at home or go to work.

Steve, as much as you say your daughters have life skills for finding work when you die, they really don't. Sure, they can cook and clean, and would likely be able to run a house on their own, but do they know how to manage money and pay bills, and are they able to function without a schedule and cope with the changes that would happen if you two died and weren't able to make choices for them, or would they break down at the idea of having to decide what to have for dinner? They don't have the social skills to cope in the workplace, especially with people who are different from them, and would likely be unable to manage a job interview because they lack social skills. They have no time management skills, as they have always had a schedule dictated to them, and are very inflexible because of this. They cant work independently and make their own decisions, and in the workplace there is generally an amount of things you have to work out for yourself, and not have the boss dictate their every move. They don't know how to ask for help if they don't know how to do something, as you've taught them to smile and ignore their emotions, if Teri isn't allowed to be upset or not be in a good mood when she is in pain with her bad back, how are the Maxwell daughters going to be able to cope with losing their parents and having to do things by themselves? They don't have the ability to say that they are struggling and ask for help, whether it is not knowing how to do something at work, being able to grieve healthily, or not coping with the demands of adult life.

The only thing that any unmarried Maxwell "children" will be doing when their parents die is isolating themselves in their house and struggling to survive because they don't know how.

[Melissa1977]

What is Nathan job?

[nausicaa]

From my own observations, the men who make the most noise about "protecting" their daughters and keeping them "safe" are protecting them from other men just like themselves.

The more predatory a man has been toward women, the more casual a user he has been of women as sex toys, the more women he's lied to or intimidated in order to get sex from them, the more aggressive he'll be about keeping his daughter "safe." Men like that tend to assume all other men are just as callous and contemptuous of women as they are, and that they would use his daughter (his property) with as little respect. And, of course, they think back to all the women they've used, think of them as stupid and/or slutty, and can't stand the idea of their little girl (their property) in that role. So they'll tend to be very strict with their daughters about clothing and curfews and where they can go and what they can do, and they'll play intimidation games with their boyfriends.

So I look at the patriarchalists, and how they insist they must protect their daughters, and I think, "Yeah, I know what's going through your mind when you look at other men's daughters, and what you'd like to do to them. And I'll wager you've already done your share of it." I look at Steve Maxwell, and you can't tell me he wasn't a naughty, naughty boy while stationed in Thailand. All that "protection" of his daughters? He's protecting them from men who are exactly as callous and sexually predatory as himself. And since he's a narcissist (as so many of these patriarchalists are), he can't fathom that not all men are like him. He also doesn't trust his daughters not to fall for men just like him, who will use them just as he once, very likely, used other women.

Every guy I've ever known who was completely caught up in the whole "I'm sitting here cleaning my gun" approach to his daughter dating, treated women before he was married like shit. Into exploitative porn, lying to women to sleep with them, preyed on barely legal teenagers.

Being terrified of your adult daughters having sex shows that you think heterosexual sex is inherently demeaning to women. Since these fathers aren't virgins, it reveals a lot about their own sexual relationships. I really hope people will start seeing the over-protective dad, "my daughter is joining a convent when she turns sixteen" trope for the abusive, unhealthy, misogynistic attitude that it is.

[kpmom]

I find it very hard to believe that none of their kids ever had a desire to go do something else and lead an independent life.

We know from Steve and Teri's own words that Christopher expressed an interest in pursuing a Paramedic career.

We also know from Steve and Teri's own words that he was talked out of this career by Steve pointing out that he would likely have to work shifts, and might very well have a female partner.

Christopher probably remembered Steve taking him out for a milkshake and crying when he told him he couldn't play baseball anymore and didn't want any part of that again. So, he became a good little soldier.

This is a story that we know about. I can only imagine the stories we don't know.

[SPHASH]

The girls could do child care in the home. No rent to pay since the house is paid for, but they might have to do some remodeling to bring it up to code, pay licensing fees and take CPR classes. They also have the Aunties park in the backyard, use Steve and Teri's bedroom as a nap room.

[Joan of Snarc]

It's possible they could clean houses for a living, as long as they are willing to enter non-Christian, or non-right-kind-of-Christian, homes and not proselytize. And they may occasionally have to speak with the man of the house. They can also do minor home repair-type stuff and babysit. I would hire them to do that stuff (if they want to do it in a skirt that's their business) as long as they didn't God-bother me. They could also clean churches and commercial businesses. If they were ambitious, and had some sales/marketing/bookkeeping skills, they could have a small business. Of course, that would require interacting with heathens.

:think:

[mirele]

With Stevehovah's hold on that family, all sorts of evil crap could be going on in chez Maxwell and we'd be none the wiser. When your moral source is Daddy Dearest, who knows what's going on?

[Cleopatra7]

Based on what I've read on an Orthodox Jewish blog I follow, there is a similar problem occuring in the Torah world, where families are in a race to see who can be the most "frum," making it impossible to find suitable marriages for their children.

[Dru]

What is Nathan job?

I think it's still primarily IT consulting since he works outside the house several days a week. Of course there's also 1TonRamp, but who knows how well that's doing.

[Talitha Cumi]

Based on what I've read on an Orthodox Jewish blog I follow, there is a similar problem occuring in the Torah world, where families are in a race to see who can be the most "frum," making it impossible to find suitable marriages for their children.

Link please? I'm always interested in frumkeit.

[guidedbybobafett]

Eh, I'm going to go against the hive mind and say that those girls could definitely get menial jobs. While they don't have any experience, most low-paying jobs are still meant for people with no skill in that area, meaning that they train everyone, even people who have college degrees. They don't expect anyone to show up at Starbucks (I manage a cafe location) knowing how to work at Starbucks- even people returning to the workforce and people with post-graduate degrees are trained for several weeks, and there's nothing that those girls aren't capable of learning how to do. It's not the easiest job, but their life doesn't exactly seem easy to me as it stands. While it doesn't pay very well, there are certainly a lot of people living off those wages currently, and if there's three of them sharing expenses in one house it would be absolutely fine. If I met them and informed them that the work was dirty, tough, and they would be on their feet a lot and they seemed ready and willing to try I would absolutely hire them with no work experience- I am often encouraged to hire people with little to no work experience (which is why Starbucks allows high schoolers to work in their locations). I only look for people with knowledge of the job when I'm understaffed and need someone who can pick things up easily, otherwise I am allowed labor and time to train people from the beginning.

Is it ideal? Absolutely not. Did they deserve a chance to decide if that's what they wanted? Absolutely. Are they going to be homeless and penniless when their parents die? I really, really don't think so.