Who Turned On the Control Panel?

Ihh, I do apologize for the cheesiness of this post's title. If I think of a better one I shall replace it. Anyway. You guessed it--this post is about that bane of the feminine world, CONTROL.

Not to say that men can't be abusive/oppressive/etc. But I've lately been reading the amazing book, Captivated by John and Stasi Eldredge, and one of the things they talk about is how part of "the curse" in Genesis is that women will always have a sinful desire to be in control, and how without God's grace they will ruin their own lives and the lives of others with their controlling ways.

Trust me, I know about control. Because, although my mom probably is completely unaware of what she is doing, and sees herself as training us up/upholding good standards/protecting us, etc., she is in actuality very, very controlling of my sisters and me. Oh, not directly, of course. Not with literal punishments or, most of the time, actual coherent words. Instead, the control my mom exerts is an emotional control--directing and inhibiting our decisions and actions by a disapproving look, a too pointed question, an emotional withdrawal, a deliberate silence. She's got this one particular routine that I'm trying to come up with a good name for--if she's especially displeased with something (and usually it is not known what) she'll like pass you in the hallway or something and not even say "Hi" or smile, but simply look at you with this resigned expression, like you're so degenerate she can't even talk to you about it. She makes us feel that it is almost literally a moral sin to sleep in "late" on a non-school/non-work morning (and by her definition, "late" is like, 8 AM) and also to stay up "late" (i.e. any time past about 10:00), thus controlling the hours we are available during the day and making those hours coincide with her personal schedule as much as possible. My mom constantly presents herself to us as an extremely busy woman who never, never has enough time to do all the many things required of her--and thus makes us feel that our days, just like her days, simply MUST be filled with endless and undying work, especially since, when we were little, she made the immense sacrifice for us of being a stay-at-home mom, and now we owe it to her to return the favor by devoting the majority of our free time to working in her house. She often assigns us major household projects the minute our school vacations begin--such as this time, when we were assigned to paint the office and downstairs bathroom in our house. We have a rigid system where we make food in bulk and freeze it, then pull a meal out of the freezer every night for supper--because of this, every other Saturday morning we are required to spend the morning cooking a bunch of meals. Right now, she's insisted on a major overhaul of the backyard (which we NEVER go in) and consequently my sisters, my father, and I have spent the past several weekends shoveling dirt and chopping away at trees and shrubbery until the backyard is practically a desert and we have a lovely fishbowl effect going on with a direct view of our neighbor's back yard. Awkward.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should just lounge about the house all day and never lift a finger to make supper or something--it's just that there are 5 women in our house, and there literally cannot be as much work as she believes there is. How did she take care of 4 little girls when she was the only woman around, if it was this hard? I literally feel like my mom creates jobs and perceived needs for us. And I also feel that she should understand that I am a 21-year-old single woman with absolutely no romantic "prospects" in sight, and also trying to finish college and work, and that my priorities right now might extend a little further than cleaning the bathrooms, etc.

So I seriously think it's all about control--the constant chores and work give my mom a way to keep us at home as much as possible, to monitor our activities, to mold our days and our schedules around her personal preferences, to ensure that her home is the center of our lives (not a desire to have a home of our own). I mean, if I am at home during the day and not doing some kind of useful task, I literally feel very uncomfortable! And not that everything we do at home is a waste of time--as I've described before, my family watches a precious 3-year-old during the day while his mom is at work. However, that still leaves the situation of one child and one house. Why are FIVE constantly working women required to keep this household at a functioning level? Control, control, control.

It's not just the housework, of course. Technically, we're allowed to choose our own clothing. But you can bet that if you buy something Mom doesn't like, you will be sent back to the store with a modesty lecture and a receipt marked "Return." She always said that when we were in college, we would be allowed to go where we wanted, when we wanted. But you can bet that if we just left the house without discussing our plans with her, we would return home to a "How could you not have told me?" "Where were you when I needed you?" "So where did you go?" or, if it's at any time past like 10, our poor tired dad sitting up in the living room waiting to make sure we were able to get home in the dark. And in theory, we're allowed to make our own media choices. But you can bet that if we bought an "unapproved" CD or movie, the comments would fly. This has been the consistent pattern throughout all of our adolescent and post-adolescent lives--for instance, past a certain point we were allowed to go on all the weekend & overnight youth group events at our church. But guess who always, always, ALWAYS volunteered as a cook or a driver or a chaperone.

Sometimes when I think about my mom, I'm reminded of this episode of The Dog Whisperer, where there was this beautiful collie dog (female, I think, interestingly) who felt that she had to be the "top dog" and the "pack leader" who was in control of everything that happened in "her" house. However, being in charge resulted in a lot of pressure on this dog, and she would literally freak out and bark uncontrollably at the smallest things, like the toaster popping up the toast. Cesar explained this dog's weird behavior by saying that because she felt she had to be in control, even the slightest disturbance in "her" house became a threat. It wasn't until he exerted some authority over the dog, communicating to her that she was NOT in control, that the dog started to relax and act normal. I've often wondered why my mom seems to always be so unnecessarily stressed (because, honestly, her situation, even with all the busyness, is, like 500x easier than that of the average woman worldwide). But now I think it's because she is like that collie dog--she feels she has to be in total control, and therefore anything and everything (us leaving the house without saying where we are going, us spending large blocks of time out of her sight, even me buying a new outfit) becomes a threat to that control.

PLEASE don't think that I'm writing all this to gossip or hurt or slander my mom. Because I do love my mom a lot. And there are a lot of good things about her. But, none of you know my mom and I would never say all this to her or to any of her friends or anything like that. But I feel that I need to write about this, because I grew up thinking that my parents knew "God's way" to do everything, and I think it's an important step for me to sort through my experiences and decide what was actually good and what wasn't.

Now comes the really hard part. I always thought of myself as being different than that. I always thought that because I never tell people outside of the family how to live their lives, have no sort of authority over anyone, and don't boss people around or assign them tasks, that I was not one of "those" controlling women. However, Captivated talks about another form of control--the women who become overly shy & unsocial, who never go out, who live in a very narrow sphere, and who never put themselves at risk emotionally, even for the benefit of another. And wow--that is SO me! I never realized that the whole shyness thing could be a form of control, but it's SO true! Of course, I understand that God gives everyone a specific personality, and that some people are naturally more introverted than others, etc., but seriously...I use the "introversion" excuse as a way to ensure that I have total control over my relationships with others. Even though my sister and I are visiting churches right now and thus this is somewhat justified, there's still something pretty ridiculous about the way I deliberately arrive at a church "fashionably late" and then make a beeline for the back door the moment the service is over. Am I afraid that someone new might talk to me, and thus disrupt my narrow circle of relationships? Even when I study on campus, I consistently avoid studying in more public places like the library cafe or the student center, but instead shut myself away in the "no talking" section of the upstairs library--that way I have the control of feeling certain that no one will interrupt my life by talking to me. I wear dark or neutral colors and unnoticeable clothing so I can slink around town in relative privacy (but in all honesty, anything that happens with my clothing is not entirely my fault. But that is another story.)

In the digital age, this is especially easy to do...you know, hide behind things like Facebook and email instead of actually spending time with actual people. And it doesn't help that my mother is super-incompentent socially and that I was raised with the general assumption that girls & women who spent time shopping, talking on the phone, or doing other activities with friends were frivolous, selfish, and wasteful, while "good" women stayed home with their immediate family as much as possible and spent a LOT of time doing church work and chores. (I mean literally--I still am afraid to talk to anyone on the phone for longer than 15 minutes!) Not to mention that this is one of the major cons of homeschooling (because there ARE cons--don't believe all those homeschooling advice books!)

But I want my life to be different. I want my life to center around relationships, and not around endless work. I'm not afraid to work hard, especially doing things that are actually necessary. But since I do not live on the 1800s American frontier, I believe that there is also time in life for leisure and fun and developing grace-filled relationships. But in order to do that, I'll have to relinquish the control that I have created in my life by being a shrinking violet who only ventures outside her immediate circle when she goes on a short-term mission trip. And I'll have to risk the emotional turmoil and lack of security that will inevitably result if I begin to center my weekends on something other than my mom's chore list. And both of those endeavors, are, quite frankly, rather terrifying.

-Violet

Sense and Stupidity: Jane Austen and the Courtship Culture

One thing I’ve noticed about courtship families (well, I’ve noticed a lot of things, but this is one of them): Courtship families, particularly the ones with a large over-balance of girls, LOVE Jane Austen! They list her novels as their favorite books (besides the Bible and I Kissed Dating Goodbye), they sew their own Regency-style dresses (though with slightly more fabric in certain places if you know what I mean), and they even hold their own officially-sanctioned “ballroom dancing” parties (all of which are solely attended by girls in said dresses who proceed to dance with each other in a way that is not considered homoerotic at all). In the courtship world, Jane Austen is a virtual heroine!

Now. If you’ve been reading this blog at all, I hope you’ve gathered the fact that, although I was raised according to “courtship” principles, I think that the courtship lifestyle is in fact very unhealthy and I in no way wish to court anyone or identity myself as a “courting” person. Check out...well, mostly all of the previous postings for more specifics on this fact. However, would I consider myself a Jane Austen fan? HECK YES. I do own the complete collection of her novels (though I have not read ALL of them yet—silly me) and I have seen movie or British TV adaptations for, I believe, all but one of her major works. I consider Miss Austen’s witty dialog, quirky characters, sense of humor, and intricate plot lines to be absolutely irresistible. And one of my all-time favorite movies is the 1995 BBC/A&E adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. (I mean, seriously. One word. Two syllables. MR. FREAKIN’ DARCY. IN THE LAKE.)

Ahem. Anyway. Being myself something of a “Janeite,” I in no way intend to criticize Austen novels or insinuate that enjoying her works is bad in any way. Quite the contrary. Rather, I wish to ponder what it is about Miss Austen’s novels that draw the courtship crowd to her like flies to a light bulb.

I think one reason that Jane Austen appeals to the courtship culture is because a basic biography of her life (Wikipedia, hee hee) makes her appear to be the kind of “Biblically-feminine” girl that the courtship world idealizes. I mean, who could better personify the courtship culture than an early-1800s English clergyman’s daughter who was educated at home, never moved away from her parent’s house, wrote novels from a home setting, and never got married? (although she always had kind of a thing for James McAvoy, apparently, although who wouldn't, lol). However, certain ironies appear when you consider that, although Jane Austen’s novel-writing lifestyle appears very traditional and “feminine” by modern-day standards, the idea of a woman becoming famous for her writing accomplishments was actually pretty radical and risqué for her age, and poor Jane received barely any non-posthumous recognition for her works. It kind of cracks me up that both the courtship/keep-daughters-at-home-forever advocates (I don’t know what these people officially call themselves, lol) and the literary-feminist bunch both cite Jane Austen’s novels as examples of their own particular belief system (and little me just thought the books were interesting and romantic).

Another reason that courtship families embrace Jane Austen so much is because, in the upper-class Regency world of her novels, “courting” actually was a normal part of the interaction between single men and women (notice I said A PART). Jane Austen’s protagonists, though always quirky, self-aware, independently-thinking women (at least by the end of the novel) generally achieve their happy endings by learning to balance their personal needs and desires with the pre-established courtship system that their society was grounded in. Their culture was guided by certain rules of propriety that were intended to keep women from having children out of wedlock and thus disrupting the family inheritance lines. Of course, there were certainly plenty of women who got fed up with those non-negotiable rules and decided instead to obtain the man they wanted in the worst way possible (Lydia Bennett much?) But I think it’s important to remember that the upper-class world of “courting” was far removed from the laxer and less formal standards held by most of the lower- or middle-class people of that time (and I should totally provide a source for that, but I totally don’t feel like finding one right now…). Additionally, the upper-class Regency world (UNLIKE the 2010 courtship culture) recognized that men and women need some basic ways to interact prior to entering into an official courtship relationship. Hence, the reason that pretty much 80% of any given Austen novel takes place during social events such as balls or “supper and cards” parties that were deliberately designed to provide singles with a chance to meet and interact with members of the opposite sex. They also realized that allowing couples a chance to touch in non-sexual ways can actually be conducive to a good relationship; it was not considered lust-inducing or “emotionally impure” to enjoy a beautiful contradance together, and men were actually expected to offer women their arms when walking. You’d never catch a modern-day courtship parent sipping punch on the sidelines while every young man in the room dances with their daughter.

It’s also worth pointing out that many Jane Austen protagonists do things that are in fact NOT in line with the basic ideals of the courtship movement (which sometimes makes me wonder how closely the courtship/Austen fans actually read her novels). For instance, the first time that Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth Bennet, he does NOT ask Lizzy’s dad for permission to propose to or even “woo” Lizzy. And after his proposal, Lizzy does NOT tell her parents about it. In fact, Jane Austen women in general do not have the intimate, transparent mother-daughter relationship that is promoted by books such as Carolyn Mahaney & co’s book “Girl Talk” (usually because their mothers are either dead, or complete and total wackadoodles). Instead, you see Jane Austen women forging their closest non-romantic bonds with young women in their same generation: Jane and Lizzy, Elinore and Marianne, etc. How are they coping without their mothers’ constant advice on every subject in the world, and without confessing their crushes and so forth to their mothers?

So, basically, the IRONY. The courtship culture presents the reading of Jane Austen as yet another thing in a long list that good, Biblical, feminine, courting women do. And yet Miss Austen’s novels were written almost 200 years before the Christian courtship movement even began, and I’m pretty sure she would never have wanted to become a sort of literary poster child for a way of life that would have prevented the successful romantic matches in her novels from ever taking place. So maybe it’s time to stop using Miss Austen’s works to make us feel better about our courting selves, and instead simply enjoy them for what they are: well-written, satisfying, and classic stories with some very realistically drawn characters, and, let’s be honest, some pretty likeable guys. :)

(De-hypocritizing side note: Once some friends [all girls], my sisters and I dressed up in Regency-ish attire and had a ballroom-dancing party of our own. [And actually half of us dressed up as guys. So. Yeah.] The reason that the ballroom-dancing parties that I mentioned in the first paragraph annoy me is because they are freely publicized events [whereas there would be several attempted-murders committed if I put our ballroom-dancing photos on Facebook] that are hosted by people who have not really made it a secret that they think their way of doing things is the only “right” way to do them. Ergo, woe to all those girls who happen to feel that attending an all-female “dance” is kind of...odd, and prefer instead to go canoeing, watch a movie, or even [gasp] go on a date with an actual guy!)

-Violet