Let Your Children Do It All?

Let Your Children Do It All? September 7, 2019

Screen cap from You Tube.

We’re returning to a very familiar theme,Β  that as Quiverfull mommas the only way to cope is to turn over the running of the household to the minor children. Let your children do it all, at least according to Nancy Campbell of Above Rubies in a piece titled β€œMore is Easier”.

What is it about these Quiverfull enforcers that many of them will write about the exact same thing at the same time? Hive mind?

Whatever happened to allowing children to actually be children with play time and not a pile of responsibilities?

I was talking to one lovely mother who is expecting her 10th baby. She shared with me a lovely testimony. On a recent Sunday morning at church some of the young mothers asked her how she survived with so many children.

β€œOh, more is easier,” she replied.

β€œTruly?” they gasped in surprise.

She then shared with them her testimony of that very morning: β€œI hadn’t slept well last night and because I’m pregnant, I slept in a little later. When I got up, I noticed my 13-year-old daughter preparing breakfast and getting all the clothes ready for the other children to wear to church. Another daughter was looking after the baby. All was well.

β€œSo I leisurely took a shower and then spent some time reading the Word. When I came out to the kitchen the breakfast was all waiting on the table and we sat down together.”

It is true that when you have many children, they are not all little toddlers! Each child grows every year. And each child you train to take a little more responsibility and do their specific tasks.

Each time a new baby comes along there are more and more arms wanting to hold the baby and play with him. There are more helpers to help with meals and keep the home running smoothly.

I think the most overwhelming time of motherhood is when you have your first two or three children. You have no helpers. But as children come along, you have more and more helpers. And yes, it’s true, more noise! But also more love, more cuddles, more joy and laughter, more entertainment, more playmates for your children, and more blessings.

It’s God’s way for family life.

No, this is not β€œGod’s way” to turn your children into your own personal support staff! We’ve seen all the comments here from ladies and men forced into becoming household laborers at a time when they should have been playing with friends. Of a chore chart so onerous that they’d fall into bed exhausted at night.. Of a controlled life with out a moment to oneself.

This goes well beyond kids helping around the house, or having routine chores for an allowance. You might want your son to take out the trash and mow the lawn for his allowance, or a daughter to dust and fold laundry. But you’re not going toΒ  pile the entire responsibility for running a home, cooking, raising children and other things on the slim shoulders of a child, unless you are Quiverfull.

Some might call this exploitation of child labor and they wouldn’t be wrong.


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About Suzanne Titkemeyer
Suzanne Titkemeyer went from a childhood in Louisiana to a life lived in the shadow of Washington D.C. For many years she worked in the field of social work, from national licensure to working hands on in a children's residential treatment center. Suzanne has been involved with helping the plights of women and children' in religious bondage. She is a ordained Stephen's Minister with many years of counseling experience. Now she's retired to be a full time beach bum in Tamarindo, Costa Rica with the monkeys and iguanas. She is also a thalassophile. She also left behind years in a Quiverfull church and loves to chronicle the worst abuses of that particular theology. She has been happily married to her best friend for the last 33 years. You can read more about the author here.

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