*sigh*

[patgund]

First I posted a link about "Prairie Muffins"

Today's link?? Meet the "Quiverful"

Evangelical Group's Motto: Breed to Succeed

"But after the kids leave, Pastor Stan doesn't exhort his congregation to bear children. His approach is more subtle, reminding them to present their bodies as living sacrifices to the Lord, and preaching to them about Acts 5:20: Go tell "all the words of this life." Or, in Pastor Stan's guiding translation, to lead lives that make outsiders think, "Christianity is real," lives that "demand an explanation."

Lives such as these: Janet Wolfson is a 44-year-old mother of eight in Canton, Georgia. Tracie Moore, a 39-year-old midwife who lives in southern Kentucky, is mother to fourteen. Wendy Dufkin in Coxsackie has her thirteen. And while Jamie Stoltzfus, a 27-year-old Illinois mom, has only four children so far, she plans on bearing enough to populate "two teams." All four mothers are devoted to a way of life New York Times columnist David Brooks has praised as a new spiritual movement taking hold among exurban and Sunbelt families. Brooks called these parents "natalists" and described their progeny as a new wave of "Red-Diaper Babies" -- as in "red state."

But Wolfson, Moore and thousands of mothers like them call themselves and their belief system "Quiverfull." They borrow their name from Psalm 127: "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate." Quiverfull mothers think of their children as no mere movement but as an army they're building for God.

Quiverfull parents try to have upwards of six children. They home-school their families, attend fundamentalist churches and follow biblical guidelines of male headship -- "Father knows best" -- and female submissiveness. They refuse any attempt to regulate pregnancy. Quiverfull began with the publication of Rick and Jan Hess's 1989 book, A Full Quiver: Family Planning and the Lordship of Christ, which argues that God, as the "Great Physician" and sole "Birth Controller," opens and closes the womb on a case-by-case basis. Women's attempts to control their own bodies -- the Lord's temple -- are a seizure of divine power."

There's more at the link. Scary more too.

Comments

[seattlejo.livejournal.com]

Have you seen these folks? The Duggars They have had multiple TV shows and are jaw dropping scary.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

Yeah, saw them, found them scary.....

....and full of it too. The TLC show made a big deal of them building their house with their own money and no loans, and failed to note it was partly subsitised by their church.

Their website is even scarier. Case in point:

""...We break for lunch at 12:00pm. Jill (age 13) prepares lunch & we all help cleanup. After lunch we work to finish individual studies..[some other stuff]... We have dinner at 5:00p.m. Jana (Age 14) prepares dinner""

So you have a 13 year old and a 14 year old making the family's meals for everyone. A family of 17 people. Wonder how many help or if the girls (and notice it's the girls, NOT their brothers) have to do it alone.

And back to the TLC show, something else really bothered me. Watching the children do construction work on that house. The boys were all sensibly dressed in work clothes, while the girls were wearing the same everyday dresses to operate power tools. That's where I got creeped out. The fact that they are expected to work in those clothes, regardless of functionality or safety. How different is that from a Burqua or Nijab in the Middle East??

*getting off of soapbox now*

[seattlejo.livejournal.com]

Well I effectivly became the female head of household at the age of 12, so I wont say that the cooking for the family is that odd, and I'm sure its the girls working together, not the boys

Its not the money from the church that bothers me with the house, its the "gifts" from the sponsers. There is a reason it was campbells soup on the shelves, and maytag washers.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

Yeah, no kidding. Any family can make it with corporate sponsorship...... *rolls eyes*

Just would be nice if they would give time for the kids to be kids.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Patrick, you know I'm your friend - but I'm going to call you on hypocrisy for this one.

Okay, I don't agree with their religion or ideas on gender roles, and I know you don't either. But - so what? It's THEIR life. Let them live it. I don't think we have any grounds to make a fuss about it.

If it's fine for people to choose to have fewer children, or none at all, then it's fine for these people to have more. Those who are having fewer certainly wouldn't put up with us criticizing their reproductive choies. I've gotten a lot of nastiness, especially in California, for choosing to have multiple children. Outright inexcusable rudeness. Certainly those people would never put up with me criticizing them for being childless. (actually, I wouldn't - I'm just grateful. But I wish they'd shut the hell up and leave me and mine alone) These people are raising their own families - and if they're getting church sponsorship, so what? It's not coming out of any of our tax money. If I was posting griping about drug-addicted welfare mothers having lots of children, I'd have people coming down on me hard for it - and those ARE getting my tax money.

I've been in a religious household with 10 children, back in Michigan, when I was a midwife's apprentice. And you know what? Those were the cleanest, politest, friendliest, and nicest children I met in the whole state.

And as for a 13 and 14 year old preparing meals? Good. Kids used to get MARRIED at that age, after all. Nowadays most teenagers don't do much more than sit around playing Nintendo, rather than learning meaningful life skills and responsibility under parental supervision. I was doing a good bit of housework at age 14, and it would have done me good to get taught more cookery. I am certainly planning to have my kids able to significantly help by that age. Preparing them for adulthood is my job. (Yeah, and - depending on ability and disability issues, sadly a necessary caveat for boys in our family - the boys too. But - I'm their mother, not these other kids' mother.)

I look at this sort of thing - and then I look at 'liberal' families I know, who have a kid and then dump it into daycare when it's only a few weeks old, plan on both parents having full-time jobs involving a lot of danger and travel, and the mother is planning to do heavy-duty grad school work while the child is small - and it's not hard to see which family's kids will get more love and attention, and whilch one will be lonely.

This is America. If they want to live that way, they can. If we don't want to live that way, we don't. I think that's a good thing for everyone.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

This is not a rant about big families. I don't care how many kids a couple want to have, provided that a) they can support them all, b) care for them all, and c) none of the children are getting short-changed. I'm from a family of four children. My brothers have 3, 3, and 5. One of my best friends is the youngest in a family of 13. So that part doesn't bother me in the least.

It's the *reasons* given for having these families that bothers me. There seems to be a feeling of "quantity over quality", and that somehow the more kids you have the closer you are to God. Add to that the political overtones, the sexism, and "we must try to match the breeding rates of non-whites" alluded to in the article, and *that's* the reason for my feelings on this.

I'm not saying big families are bad. But I really have to question the reasons of the people in this article.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

So? It's THEIR reasons. I suggest if somebody started criticizing your choices in having children, you'd be MAD.

In fact, I've heard from you that members of your blood family did just that, and you DID get mad.

I think the people who are criticizing these people are being hypocritical, and would not tolerate anyone criticizing their choices. (I know that people will PRE-EMPTIVELY get mad at me as a parent of multiple children, because they think I may criticize them and tell them to have kids, when fact I have no intention of doing that at all.)

I read that blog you linked to, complaining about Prairie Muffins. The woman was bitching because she didn't think their swimsuits were fashionable. WTF? What business is it of hers what these women choose to wear?

[patgund.livejournal.com]

Their reasons, yes.

There's the saying that the road to hell is paved in good intentions.

They may feel that they have the best intentions for having so many children.

But if the end result is children that cannot cope with adulthood, have problems adjusting, children that feel neglected or abandoned, children that felt their parents were too busy or overwhelmed to love them, or children who grow up feeling that they were born *only* to advance some political or religious agenda, then I have to argue if their parents choices were best for the resulting children.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I think that child of a liberal family I mentioned to you is far more likely to feel neglected and that its parents are too busy to love it.

And certainly a family that is teaching its children to cook meals is more likely to have children that can cope with adulthood. And in larger families they're going to learn a lot more interpersonal skills.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

Oh, and BTW, I've gotten flak from people who feel I have one child, I should stop there and not have any more. My attitude is that, should I find myself in a stable relationship with someone who wants children, I won't object to more. But I'm not going to limit myself based on other people's opinions - or have more than I can safely care for and love.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Good for you.

Of course, in my head I have you classified as "parent of three".

[peaseblossom03.livejournal.com]

I think it's unwise to encourage such large families in this day and age, when overpopulation can have such an effect on natural resources and the environment in general. I'm not saying it's bad or wrong or that they shouldn't; I'm merely saying I think it's unwise.

Mother Teresa once said something to the effect of, suggesting there's such thing as too many children is like suggesting there are too many flowers. But in some places, there really are too many flowers.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

You're friends with mactavish. Did you see deyo's post on that topic?

[peaseblossom03.livejournal.com]

As a matter of fact I did. I didn't really notice until now who had made that post. Thanks for the link.

[winterlion.livejournal.com]

these people demonstrate why there are population problems.
to quote: "They do not know the harm they do"

They are also an argument in favour of higher infant mortality *sigh*

This will not have a good end - and it will cost everyone nearby.
It would be different if they were actually capable of sustaining that population.... but they're not.


I lived for years around Mormons. They have SOME similarity - at least in the folks I was around - but also a standing rule: no more children than a family can support. Mind you, their past also lies in this mentality and they've yet to catch up either. At least they are somewhat aware of the price they could pay.

[jeran.livejournal.com]

What disturbs me most, I think, is that they see this as a war or contest of some sort and feel compelled to "beat" everybody else by sheer numbers if that's what's needed.

[lapiskelinia.livejournal.com]

Well shit! More people I have to eventually outbreed.

Just gets harder every time.