It was a social media post from a club for stay at home mothers who home-schooled for religious reasons. Most of the posters were complaining that they never had money for anything beyond a few scant basics. Certainly not funds enough for family vacations, or second cars, or anything else. All of them one costly auto repair or serious illness from bankruptcy. One said she had nothing left to sacrifice now. What they are talking about here is the idea of the homeschooling stay at home moms above all else. The ideal pushed by many wealthier cultural enforcers of Quiverfull.

This is the sad hard reality for Quiverfull families who don’t have television shows, a line of books, a big ministry, or a spouse in a high paying field.  They are trying to stick to a standard that is miserable without personal wealth, being promoted by those with enough personal wealth to do it without sacrificing a thing.

Remember when we first met TLC’s the Duggar family? They lived in a tiny three bedroom home with one bathroom if I recall correctly. Buy used, save the difference, feed the family baloney sandwiches and casseroles made of cheap canned soups, frozen potatoes and the cheapest meat available. The girls wore those baggy jumpers made from whatever cotton fabric was on the dollar rack at Walmart. No one’s ideal of prosperous.

Or the Rodrigues living in what is basically a converted barn. Dressing the children in bottom of the barrel Goodwill leftovers like Dickensian street urchins. Going around begging for contributions while claiming it is their ministry?

The Pearls and their tales of old cat food cans and seed corn contributions from the church Michael ministered in. All the tales of making do with what they had.

We’ve seen Steven and Zsuzsanna Anderson smashed into the tiniest of homes with over ten kids. With food rationing, and Zsu serving very carb heavy meals that are cheaper. I will give Zsu credit, she’s found a zeitgeist friendly way to make money with her modest swimsuits, cookbooks and homeschooling organizers and other helps.

None of this sounds ‘successful’ in the slightest. All you have to do is to peruse a few message boards for stay at home homeschooling moms and you will see tales of extreme poverty. It’s why so many of these women fall head first into multi level marketing schemes, and end up losing lots of money.

I’ve seen people criticize them for not growing large gardens, and all sorts of other ‘must dos’. What they are missing is that all of these things like gardening take a certain amount of start up money. If you’re hovering on the edge of poverty you’re not going to have the funds to outlay for a rototiller, seeds, hoses, hoes and other basics, even if it’s just for the initial groundbreaking.

No amount of Nancy Campbell babbling about setting your table with dishes from Goodwill, or others explaining how to bake your own bread with expensive Einkorn flour going to work to ease the lack of money.

So here’s my question again. Was all that sacrifice actually worth it in the long run?