An Alternet article on Quiverfull

[conuly]

And let me just say that anybody who doesn't think that term is a little disturbing isn't thinking clearly about it. They're explicitly using a passage about having children like little arrows. If they were just about the kids, why not call themselves the "fruitful" movement?

Comments

[mc776]

About the kids? The first time I'd heard of this it was very explicitly, literally about breeding an army of Christians to take over the world.

[conuly]

No shit, but I've had this conversation with some online acquaintances who are involved or admiring it, and they're all "Oh, it's not threatening at all!!!"

Quiver. Full. Of. Arrows.

Pretty damn threatening to *me*, thanks very much!

[mc776]

I'm tempted to start a group called "Spears in the Shade", just to throw it back at them.

Sadly, I doubt more than about three hundred people would get it.

[conuly]

301 once you explain it to me.

[mc776]

This is... the reference starting at 1:45.

[conuly]

Thank you :)

[dragonwolf]

The fun part is, from resources I've found, the warrior actually said that to the Persians. :D

[mc776]

I hate you for inducing me into reading that, in particular reading it to the end.

I hate myself more for expecting better of a column on National Review.

Anyway, yes I would not have made the reference otherwise. >_>

[dragonwolf]

Ah well, it was one of the first ones I found that had the attributions for the exact quote when I was looking for it at a time that I should have been working.

Such is the way of things when pop culture is used to get people interested in actual historical events. If it weren't for the movie, I know I wouldn't have known about it, since it never was in my history classes. (It's a shame, too, because even though that battle technically had more than 300, they were still woefully outnumbered, and both it and the battle a year later were epic, despite that fact.)

[rantinan.livejournal.com]

I couldn't read too deeply into it. when an article describes the results of brainwashing as "liking it" i get this urge to vomit copiously

[conuly]

http://nolongerquivering.com/

That better?

[rantinan.livejournal.com]

Clicks, checks

[rantinan.livejournal.com]

Terrifying. but readable.

[sayga.livejournal.com]

The part that really was worrisome to me was about how if a woman did not get protected or taken care of, it was her fault because she didn't do enough for the man in her life to deserve protection. I mean, the whole thing is worrisome, but that part in particular. Ugh.

[conuly]

Just recently one of the bigger families ended up on ontd... one of the ontd's, anyway. And from there it ended up on metaquotes, which is how I found the post. In the comments there were several people saying they "hoped" that the girls were choosing to wear those dresses instead of pants. I mean, this was their big problem with the picture of the 17 kids (they're aiming to rival the Duggars...) in one family.

I felt like commenting that the dress code is the most normal and sensible thing about this whole lifestyle, but I couldn't put one word in front of the other clearly.

[sayga.livejournal.com]

Oh that reminded me of another part of that article, about out breeding the non believers or something. That kind of sentiment is pretty disgusting to me. My grandparents were complaining about how by 2050, white people are supposed to be the minority in the US (or something like that). They were REALLY upset about it. I tried to put it in a perspective that would be more meaningful to them, and pointed out that there is a lot of racial mixing now than there used to be, so their great great great great grandchildren are just as likely to be brown as white. I mean, what are they worried about anyway? (And they already HAVE non-white great grandchildren, so it's not like they just can't imagine it happening; it already IS happening). Anyway, it just pisses me off enough that I can't even say much of anything to them (plus, they won't be around in 2050 anyway, so why would they even care?).

[conuly]

They're not even right!

Current demographic projections do say that by 2050 non-Hispanic whites will comprise about 47% of the population. Now, assuming we don't just start considering assimilated Hispanic whites "white" (and that's a huge assumption right there), 47% of the population is only a minority if the other 53% is homogeneous. Which it wouldn't be, of course - there'd still be more white people than anybody else.

And even if whites were a minority, I'd be surprised if we really lost, as a group, that much total power, which is what counts, not numbers.

So even if they feel the need to be "I'm not racist!!!" about this, they're still wrong. (This doesn't fill me with glee. I want my postracial, socialist paradise. We're not likely to get the postracial part, and - despite what some people think - I don't expect socialism in my lifetime either.)

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

http://www.theocracywatch.org has a ton of stuff about what these people do to their kids.

We met some once. Five of them, blank-faced as dolls.

[conuly]

*sighs*

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Where do I sign up for the Lesbian-Socialist Republic?

[conuly]

Not in the Republic of Gilead, that's for sure.

[karalianne.livejournal.com]

*shudders*

Ugh. I hate that stuff.

It's one thing to agree that the man should be the head of the household (with the caveat that he must only use that power in accordance with God's will); it's entirely another to state that women have no voice in the family except to blindly support their husbands. I mean, Proverbs talks about how a woman should be able to get on in business and make her husband a lot of money by buying and selling land without even telling him about it first (I think that's how it goes; I may be misremembering) - and that was written way before any of the Epistles that talk about women submitting to men!

I had never even heard of the whole stay-at-home daughter aspect before; that is utterly appalling.

My personal choice is to be a stay-at-home mother and to homeschool my kids (once we have them). I expect that part of having my children home with me is that they will all (both boys and girls) learn to do various household chores. They will be able to do their own laundry, cook, do mending and ironing, and clean the house. I hope some of them choose to learn to sew, knit, and crochet, as well, since these are hobbies I enjoy. There will be no need for anyone to stay home instead of going away to university, because they will be perfectly able to look after themselves, and hopefully they will be able to manage a home without any further training in the necessary skills by the time they're old enough for post-secondary! I mean, if nothing else, my own mother made sure that all four of us (and I have three younger brothers) could do our own laundry by the time we were 15, we all took turns doing the dishes and cooking dinner once or twice a week, and we all had weekend cleaning chores that rotated each week (e.g., cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming, dusting).

(Obviously some kids might not be able to do all of those tasks, depending on whether or not they have a disability of some kind that makes it difficult or impossible to do the usual way - but we'll still try, and we'll do our best to find a method that makes it possible.)

[conuly]

that was written way before any of the Epistles that talk about women submitting to men!

But don't they think the NT supersedes the OT, at least when they agree with the NT and not the OT?

[karalianne.livejournal.com]

*facepalm*

I forgot about that part. I hate that kind of pick and choose, too. If you're going to misinterpret stuff, at least be consistent about your misinterpretation.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I read it, and then I threw up in my mouth a little. :-P

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

In an economy where jobs are scarce, college is expensive, and affordable housing is hard to find, there are hundreds of thousands of stay-at-home daughters and sons all over the country. I strongly disagree with the religious programming, but I don't see anything so terrible about 'making a virtue of neccessity', legitimizing the girls' staying at home when they don't have anywhere else to go anyhow.

What's the big advantage, after all, if a young lady finishes high school, gets a McJob, and finds an apartment with a room-mate or two? Work all the time for low pay, no benefits, no advancement, no job security... rent and utilities are expensive, room-mates are hard to live with, or they leave, or lose their jobs... and meanwhile the Party Life beckons after work: boys certainly, drink probably, drugs maybe, sex practically inevitably. All for what?

Except in cases of abuse, it often makes more sense for young people to go on living with their parents until they marry, and sometimes even after they marry. The 'nuclear family' is something of an abberration, and with the breakdown of traditional marriage it works worse than ever; extended families living together has been the norm throughout history for very good reasons.

I have to laugh at that 'advanced housekeeping' stuff. Children are able and very willing to start helping with chores as soon as they can walk well; an eight-year-old can learn everything there is to know about doing laundry in a single afternoon; by the time a kid is through grade school, he or she ought to have acquired all the skills of housework, which are not rocket science (http://www.amazon.com/Speed-Cleaning-Jeff-Campbell/dp/0440503744).

I can certainly see the advantage of keeping daughters around to do the housework after they already know how... LOL, assuming that doesn't cost more in nagging and fighting than the work is worth. My own daughter has excellent housekeeping skills, but her apartment is usually a mess, and I'm very glad it is Not My Problem.