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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/15/2009 1:17:35 PM
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Sunnymom
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quote:
ORIGINAL: heremainsfaithful
My mom and I have discussed this, and I would love to hear someone else's perspective. Her neighbor has six kids, all of whom have been wonderfully home-schooled (the mom is a fabulous teacher). They all had responsibilities, and yes, the older kids (especially the daughter) did do a lot of babysitting siblings and such. The daughter didn't mind. However, when said daughter graduated from high school with a very high SAT score and lots of potential, it was decided that she would not go to college. Why? Because the younger kids were still young and she needed to be available to help with them. Oh, and why would she need college because she was just going to marry and have kids anyway and wouldn't ever need a "job" (but that's a whole other thread). My mom - who was awesome while I was growing up - was aghast that the daughter was not permitted to go to college. But I have heard of this situation more and more lately.
If that is what the family believes is best, and the daughter doesn't have a problem with it, then it's their business. I know a couple of girls who feel that way- they take classes and continue learning, but they have no desire for a college degree, so what's the point of going to college? They fully intend to be wives and mothers, active in their churches and communities, and a blessing to their family.
To each his own, I say.
_____________________________
Susan R
Sunniemom's Survival Guide
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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/15/2009 1:52:51 PM
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heremainsfaithful
Posts: 190
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From: Alabama
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Oh, I think they should absolutely have the freedom to raise their Christian family as they see fit. But in this case the girl was dying to go to college to be a teacher. It ended up being moot because both the in-laws got involved, and now she is about to graduate.
I think that a married woman with children has the high high calling of being the wife she should be to her husband and training her children in the way they should go. That is the kind of wife and mother I want to be and hope I am.
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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/15/2009 3:01:42 PM
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kohls356
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If the daughter is ok with that then they are doing what they want to do. One thing though is what she thinks she wants at 18 can drastically change in 10, 20, even 30 years. I remember hearing my dad tell one of his friends that he saw no point in spending all that money sending girls to college when they will just be staying home taking care of the house and children. That really stuck in my mind and I don't even think he knew I heard him.
I was not encouraged to do well in school and certainly not encouraged to further my education beyond high school. I worked when I got out of school and then got married at 21 and had worked until I had my first child at 25. I did stay home but had to go back to work 6 years ago when my oldest was 13 because of my husband job loss. Oh how I wish I had had a degree to get a better job than working for a little over minimum wage. I quit that job after working there 5 1/2 years only to have to go back 4 months later because of another job loss. Again I wish I had a degree.
My daughters have encouraged me to go back to school. But I am back to what is the point. It would take me a long time to get a degree because I would't be able to go full time. I know women my age who have gone back and they have been working at it for 6 years and still not close to being finished. So my thought is why go back now to be in my mid 50s when I finish.
My point I guess is one just can't know the future and to think at the age of 18 that you know how your life will be isn't always accurate. Even if she doesn't use that degree right away it would be nice to have. One just never knows if something could happen to her husband where he can't work and she has to or if he were die young.
My oldest is in college and my other 2 will also go. They want to go, but we always talked like college is the next step after high school just like high school was the next step after middle school.
It is rather sad for the reasons that this young woman couldn't go to college if she really wanted to go. It is too bad that she couldn't even go to a community college if there was one close.
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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/15/2009 3:35:53 PM
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macokjc
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quote:
Oh, I think they should absolutely have the freedom to raise their Christian family as they see fit. But in this case the girl was dying to go to college to be a teacher. It ended up being moot because both the in-laws got involved, and now she is about to graduate.
This also happened to a girl in my home-school group. She wanted to go to nursing school, but since her parents felt that being a wife and mother was the highest calling, they refused to allow her to go or pay for it - saying that it was more important for her brothers to go to college.
If the child is under 18, then parents have all the right to limit their activities. However, if said child is 18 and has found a way to pay for it themselves, then I say they should go ahead.
Personally, I think it's a sad situation. I am a wife and mother, and right now that is my highest calling. However, there are young girls out there that might never get married, or marry somebody who dies young, or marry somebody that is disabled, etc., etc., etc.... Are they going to have to work at minimum wage for the rest of their lives? I am thankful that my parents thought it important for all of their daughters to learn a marketable skill. (Which can be obtained w/out and expensive college as well.) Actually, right now, I wish I had more of a marketable skill than my El. Ed. degree, due to my husband being out of work!
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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/15/2009 3:48:38 PM
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Sideways
Posts: 3368
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quote:
ORIGINAL: heremainsfaithful
However, when said daughter graduated from high school with a very high SAT score and lots of potential, it was decided that she would not go to college. Why? Because the younger kids were still young and she needed to be available to help with them. Oh, and why would she need college because she was just going to marry and have kids anyway and wouldn't ever need a "job" (but that's a whole other thread). My mom - who was awesome while I was growing up - was aghast that the daughter was not permitted to go to college. But I have heard of this situation more and more lately.
Personally, I find it revolting and disgusting that any parents would limit their daughter's dream like that. A few verses of scripture have been badly twisted to keep women under control and not allow them to follow God's will for their lives. I also find it very upsetting when parents try to keep an adult daughter from making her own decisions if she's willing to pay for them. Sure, she could "rebel" and be cut off from her family, all for the crime of wanting a higher education. The whole thing is a disgrace to Christianity.
But the parents are free to sin, and when the girl is 18, she is free to pay her own way. If a family can't afford college, that's one thing, but if they pour all their money into funding the boys' education because the girls aren't worth it? Well, praise the Lord for those good in-laws who helped her to follow her dreams.
_____________________________
Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. If you see a crocodile, don't forget to scream.
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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/15/2009 3:54:48 PM
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mamajennleigh
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From: Fuquay-Varina, NC
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quote:
Personally, I find it revolting and disgusting that any parents would limit their daughter's dream like that. A few verses of scripture have been badly twisted to keep women under control and not allow them to follow God's will for their lives. I also find it very upsetting when parents try to keep an adult daughter from making her own decisions if she's willing to pay for them. Sure, she could "rebel" and be cut off from her family, all for the crime of wanting a higher education. The whole thing is a disgrace to Christianity.
I agree with this 100%. There are no guarantees in life. What if she does go out and get married and have children and then her husband leaves her? Dies? Loses his job and can't find another? Just because she gets married and has children does not safeguard her against ever having to get a "job" outside the home. If she wanted to go to college, her parents should have, at the very least, encouraged her.
_____________________________
We may not have arrived, but Praise the Lord we've set sail!
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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/15/2009 3:56:09 PM
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Sideways
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quote:
ORIGINAL: SweetLittleErin
Very sad. But, again, this has more to do with overly controlling parents than with large families.
Well, if you have more children then you are willing to take care of without your older daughters' help, then I'd say your family is to big. Certain TV families have openly admitted that their household became extremely difficult to run when their older daughters were temporarily away from home.
I don't give a snot if a young lady wants to stay at home, raise her younger siblings, then go straight into wife and motherhood, if that's what she chooses from all of the many options available to her. A girl ought to have the choice to train for a career. What she does with that choice is up to her.
_____________________________
Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. If you see a crocodile, don't forget to scream.
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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/15/2009 4:49:54 PM
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Sideways
Posts: 3368
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quote:
ORIGINAL: SweetLittleErin
But I know families with one or two children where certain children are discouraged from furthering their education, be it that they are female and they feel its "not neccessary" or that they dont believe in the children enough to encourage them.
Oh, that's bad as well. And you're right that it's it's one thing to miss your daughter's help, another thing to rely on it.
Here's something else, many of us wanted to be SAHM's but not SAHW's. What happens if a young wife doesn't get pregnant right away? Again, if it's her choice to stay home, that's one thing, but to tell a new wife that she is going against God if she earns a paycheck?
_____________________________
Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. If you see a crocodile, don't forget to scream.
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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/15/2009 9:34:33 PM
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bolt.
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I think one of the deep wrongnesses of the situation is the post-adult-hood perception of a power structure.
The fact is that every 18 year old girl does have a choice to go to college... Some families may make it easy, while others may make it hard, but the choice does not disappear. All this talk of 'not being allowed' is really counterproductive vocabulary. The fact is that the cost of going to college may have included emotional and relational backlash, and some young adults consider that cost too high, and choose to give up their 'dream'.
Shame on the parents for conditioning them that way -- but the choice was still made by the young adult in the situation, based on the factors presented to her. The responsibility to make her dream happen, in spite of obstacles and pain, was hers. If 'she' counted the cost too high and chose a path with less resistance, it's important that she own that as her own choice.
_____________________________
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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/15/2009 10:37:54 PM
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Reba
Posts: 659
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quote:
...... so what's the point of going to college? They fully intend to be wives and mothers, active in their churches and communities, and a blessing to their family.
To each his own, I say.
I agree to each his own and i agree to each her own.
Providers die. They become ill, get ugly and split, etc.. A woman who does not have an education would have a hard time supporting family 'slinging hash'.
Some what down the same lines i well remember my folks talking about higher education for my brothers.. They decided 'rapture' would happen soon and not to worry about education. Well that was 50 years ago...
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Chapter and verse are posted so all may look up the context.
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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/16/2009 8:11:13 AM
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heremainsfaithful
Posts: 190
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It is very easy to say that if you are over 18 it is all on you when you have not been raised in a controlling family. At 22, I was still changing outfits if my mom didn't deem it appropriate - we're not talking modesty here, she just didn't like it. I broke an engagement to a Christian guy because my mom didn't want me to marry him. When I was 20, I wasn't allowed to drive more than 1 hour from my home because it was too dangerous. When you grow up this way, simply deciding to "stand up to them" when you turn 18 is next to impossible. Sadly, it was only when my husband put his foot down after we were married that my parents started to back off. So sometimes it is not as easy as it would seem to just do it anyway. I was terrified of disappointing them or of being guilty of of not honoring them.
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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/16/2009 9:06:29 AM
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bolt.
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heremains, I didn't mean to imply that it was easy, and I'm sorry if I've minimized your struggle. Genuinely I'm seeing in your post the perspective that I'm trying to enhance:
1) That you experienced fear.
2) That in response to that fear you made certain choices.
3) That you know what you chose and why.
4) That you know it was deeply wrong and that no one should have such a situation created around them.
I wasn't trying to recommend just standing up for yourself as of your 18th birthday, but simply to acknowledge that the power of choice always existed in you -- and that girls in your situation make quite reasonable choices, even when that means that they choose to comply because the stakes have been made too high for them.
The knowledge that the power of choice always existed in you is a very strong foundation for being able to re-count the cost of non-compliance at various times, and being able to choose it when such-a-person does, eventually, deem that the cost-benefit analysis tips the other way.
The powerless position, that these girls are 'made to' comply tends to be more permanent, as if the will of the individual has not existed, and needs to be invented, which seems impossible after so many years... that style of thinking is a considerably worse perspective to be trying to get out of.
I hope I've made more sense now, and have retracted the offense.
_____________________________
Are you having trouble getting your daily dose of the life changing Word of God?
Let my friend Brian at Daily Audio Bible help you too.
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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/16/2009 9:23:49 AM
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heremainsfaithful
Posts: 190
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Oh, I wasn't offended, don't worry. Just kind of sharing my perspective. As long as someone doesn't call me stupid, fat, or ugly, I pretty much just roll with it - ha! Now, you mess with my babies...we gonna have a problem!
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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/16/2009 10:25:18 AM
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SurpassingPeace
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I agree with Bolt on this. I come from an abusive childhood but at some point my actions, reactions, responses, etc. became my responsibility. I could remain a victim all my life or take control and be the person God wants me to be. I am also not trying to diminish anyone's struggle but it can be done. It is not easy, not very pretty at times, and down right messy at others but it can be done.
Karen
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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/16/2009 10:32:10 AM
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Ellie-Mae
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quote:
ORIGINAL: SurpassingPeace
I agree with Bolt on this. I come from an abusive childhood but at some point my actions, reactions, responses, etc. became my responsibility. I could remain a victim all my life or take control and be the person God wants me to be. I am also not trying to diminish anyone's struggle but it can be done. It is not easy, not very pretty at times, and down right messy at others but it can be done.
Karen
As someone who sent herself to Christian school for her last two years of high school, and had to separate herself from the control of her family members, I agree with this.
_____________________________
"You can" makes no difference. "You will" changes the world.
~BillyBob Jones in Grey soon to be authored by Caleb (12) for NaNoWriMo
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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/16/2009 11:42:09 AM
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Sunnymom
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Reba
quote:
...... so what's the point of going to college? They fully intend to be wives and mothers, active in their churches and communities, and a blessing to their family.
To each his own, I say.
I agree to each his own and i agree to each her own.
Puhlease- as if I was leaving out women because I used 'his' instead of 'his/her'.
quote:
Providers die. They become ill, get ugly and split, etc.. A woman who does not have an education would have a hard time supporting family 'slinging hash'.
Some what down the same lines i well remember my folks talking about higher education for my brothers.. They decided 'rapture' would happen soon and not to worry about education. Well that was 50 years ago...
I don't believe it is the wisest course of action to not allow young women to continue to learn new skills by going to college. But these young women do have the choice as to whether to abide by their parent's wishes or strike out on their own. If a daughter wishes to remain in the home or leave, that is their business to work out. We can pray and be as supportive or involved as God leads us to be. I'm dealing with exactly this issue right now with a young woman I know, and it isn't easy to watch, but she has to work this out for herself as part of her own maturing process.
Abuse situations are about more than just college for young women, and are a whole other ball of wax IMO.
_____________________________
Susan R
Sunniemom's Survival Guide
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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/23/2009 11:26:33 PM
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bzirk
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From: Where the deer and antelope play
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I haven't read one other post but the original, so it will be interesting to read what others have said.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Liveloved
I grew up in what I thought a large family. There were five children. Today I am seeing many in the church choose to have large families as well. But I am seeing another aspect that concerns me so want to ask the question here.
If you and your husband choose to have a large family, who do you see as responsible for all the work a family of that size entails? How do you decide? Are your children, especially the older ones, given responsibility that they should not have?
I have observed in many of these families a tendency to give alot of responsibility to the older children.
What a blessing for those older children to be trained this way. Quite a few of the finest people I've encountered in my lifetime were older children with responsibility for their siblings. I'm thankful that my older children have had this experience. It is making them finer people than I believe they would have been.
quote:
And I am conflicted about this. IOW, the older children often are raising/caring for the younger ones and aren't given the opportunity to be children. In my family, we were allowed to be children. We had small jobs but the majority of the 'work' was my mother's.
Obviously, I'm not conflicted about older children having a lot of responsibility caring for younger children. I too had that responsibility as a child. I was called on to do many things that the parents of my peers thought was too much, and maybe at times some of it was. But I'm here to say that those experiences have been the making of me in great part. Only on a rare occasion have I felt that I was a victim. I choose not to go there because it does not serve any good purpose. It does not salve anything in me. It merely makes me dwell on something that I had no control over. So instead, I've chosen to look at my experiences as conditioning for toughness, so that I've been thankful many times for those experiences. Also, as I've gotten older and read a lot and talked to a lot of older people, I've realized that this idea of a mostly carefree or almost responsibility free childhood is a relatively new concept, and frankly, it's killing us. How do we expect to train kids to be adults when our culture shields them from it until the last minute. That's how it seems anyway. Oh, except when it comes to sex. Then they should get an early start. LOL! Many people we revere were training diligently to be adults when they were children. Benjamin Franklin was working in his chosen profession from the time he was 12 years old, and this wasn't necessarily by choice at the time. I could list many, many more like him.
quote:
So I ask, how do you think we are to live this out in a godly way?
It seems that many parents are fearful of their kids ever experiencing any adversity and yet the principle of adversity developing us as people is clearly taught in scripture. Have you ever wondered how old David was when he was out there tending the sheep by himself? Might be something to investigate. What I"m understanding from parents today is that there is this great fear that a child will not have the joy of being a child. If David had been kept from tending the sheep when he was a boy for fear he would miss out on childhood, he would have never had the experience of killing a bear and a lion. That experience had much to do with his mental toughness and reliance on the Lord, which in turn made him a great king. I guess you could think well, that was then and this is now and we don't have to live like that anymore. Well, maybe, but how are our children turning out? Do they generally have great character and mental toughness? Do they have the endurance to weather the coming age? I don't think so. But hey, what we won't do, the Lord will do. Our children are about to go into much tougher times than most of us have endured, and history bears out that the generations who have suffered great diversity have also produced great character and ability. Look at the "Greatest Generation." They would have never been called that if they had had things as easy as most of us have had it.
My dad was not of that generation but the one that came right behind it (the one that fought in Korea). Thankfully, there was still some of this mental toughness being conditioned after the "Greatest Generation" because they lived through the Depression. My dad remembered until he died what it was like not to have food in the house. He seldom had the joy of play as a child and yet he was one of the most happy people I've ever known. Mental depression was also not something he struggled with, and many of his generation didn't. Yet he went to work at the age of nine years -- during the Depression -- and brought home his pay to help the family. In fact, his parents were much older when they had him, so they were very old when he was a very young man. He helped support them until their deaths, and he never felt cheated about his childhood and was always thankful to have something to eat and to have a job, and he loved to work. Many of his generation had this attitude, and therein lies the difference between us and them. They didn't see work as drudgery much less caring for some siblings as drudgery. But my generation and the succeeding generations definitely see it that way. What a shame.
_____________________________
bZirk
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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/24/2009 10:18:17 AM
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sisrev
Posts: 436
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From: The South, ya'll
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quote:
ORIGINAL: kohls356
...Oh how I wish I had had a degree to get a better job than working for a little over minimum wage. I quit that job after working there 5 1/2 years only to have to go back 4 months later because of another job loss. Again I wish I had a degree.
My daughters have encouraged me to go back to school. But I am back to what is the point. It would take me a long time to get a degree because I would't be able to go full time. I know women my age who have gone back and they have been working at it for 6 years and still not close to being finished. So my thought is why go back now to be in my mid 50s when I finish.
You're going to be in your mid-50's someday anyway--would you rather be in your mid-50's with a degree, or in your mid-50's without one?
_____________________________
A Virtuous Woman
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RE: Whose responsibility is it? - 10/24/2009 1:37:04 PM
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kohls356
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Joined: 8/22/2007
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quote:
ORIGINAL: sisrev
quote:
ORIGINAL: kohls356
...Oh how I wish I had had a degree to get a better job than working for a little over minimum wage. I quit that job after working there 5 1/2 years only to have to go back 4 months later because of another job loss. Again I wish I had a degree.
My daughters have encouraged me to go back to school. But I am back to what is the point. It would take me a long time to get a degree because I would't be able to go full time. I know women my age who have gone back and they have been working at it for 6 years and still not close to being finished. So my thought is why go back now to be in my mid 50s when I finish.
You're going to be in your mid-50's someday anyway--would you rather be in your mid-50's with a degree, or in your mid-50's without one?
With the money and time it would take I will take, the mid 50s without a degree. I have other priorities now.
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I'm afraid he won't let any of our children marry until they're 40, with multiple PhD's. 
Part of growing up is recognizing unhealthy relationships for what they are, and choosing to separate one's value and emotions from them.
