The “little red schoolhouse” was even more overcrowded than today’s schools are. Farm families were big, and there was one teacher per building.
They were horribly underequipped, often with 4 children per book. No school library.
Qualifications of teachers varied wildly. Some were barely literate.
Male teachers were savagely brutal, & often literally sadistic. Beatings administered for minor infractions often drew blood. "Problem " children were all treated as troublemakers–including the retarded, dyslexic, and immigrants who had a limited grasp of English. Usually, these children were beaten until they couldn’t take it anymore, & then simply stopped going.
Teachers were often unqualified, were not permitted to marry & retain teir jobs, & were not permitted to date. Or drink. Or live in their own quarters. They were required to board with the family of one of their students. For “moral reasons”. :rolleyes:
You know, the first thing I think about when I hear about families this large is: how do you get to have sex to get more babies when you already have, say, 12 kids? I mean, mr. norinew and I only have 3, and it’s hard enough for us to find uninterrupted time!
Not even that long ago, either. When my family lived in the mountains of Northern California, grades 1-8 were taught in a 2-room schoolhouse. When we moved to Sacramento from Mineral in the early spring of 1967, I got really bored in the 3rd grade because I had already covered the stuff they were still teaching in the “regular” school. I was months ahead of where they were (YMMV – schools differ in a lot of ways, but when you get a good teacher and involved parents, it works lots better).
ChefGuy: Your written response was not far off that of those who feel that “poor mother Earth” suffers a new indignity every time a human is born, and who take personal umbrage whenever anything within their perception does not comply with their idea of “The Way Things Oughtta Be”. I was riffing off of that. Apologies offered if you took my reaction personally.
Er…no. Wrong, as in “completely”. My post was in response to qts’ question, offering reasons why it might be a bad idea to procreate madly in an overcrowded world.
Not to mention that it’s hard to imagine Mrs Duggar the Teacher being at her most effective when she’s 8 and a half months pregnant and still caring for two children under three years of age… Despite having a child (roughly) every year, Mrs Duggar is not able to take maternity leave.
On top of all THAT, she’s running a household with 17 people in it. She’s juggling teaching 12 children with cooking and cleaning for a huge household. Presumably the children assist, but it’s still a mammoth undertaking. Then there’s the small matter of assisting to build the family’s new home. According to another article, they’ve been working on it for the last two years. Surely that’s eaten into her time a bit. Meanwhile they’re living in a house with two bathrooms :eek:
Surely the children’s schooling must suffer. I cannot imagine how you could juggle all those roles and still be an effective teacher.
Different situation – those families in question qualify because of polygamy. Second and subsequent wives aren’t legaly married in the eyes of the government, so as single mothers they are entitled to a wealth of services, with the income of the polygamist father not at issue. They feel justified in “sticking it to the man” in these scenarios because “the man” makes their sick, oppressive, misogynistic, ephebophiliac “plural marriages” illegal. It’s straight up welfare fraud, really, but no one is willing to take these people on. Every DA and Attorney General in Utah who has prosecuted any of these folks loses their job in the next election. It’s scary.
Cite?
From time to time I work with Utah prosecutors (since they are just one state over), and I never heard anything like this. The general criticism I’ve heard is that they rarely prosecute the cases at all. As a former prosecutor, I feel for my overworked comrades in Utah - it could be a very hard case to prove, and the vast majority of polygamists aren’t exactly troublemakers.
Besides, the largest polygamist faction is, IIRC, in Arizona. The last time they tried a massive arrest in the 1950’s, it was a massive disaster due to poor planning and little foresight.
Hmm, does anyone else have a sense of foreboding like I do after reading all these messages? Is this woman a prime candidate to end up on the national news for killing her children ala Andrea Yates? That’s the impression I got, how about anyone else?
Groucho:“So, Mrs. Smith, do you have any children?”
“Yes, thirteen.”
Groucho:“Thirteen! Good lord, isn’t that a burden?”
“Well, I love my husband.”
Groucho:“Lady, I love my cigar too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while.”
Y’all have a gander at the everyone-including-mom-and-dad-in-identical clothes photo? Makes the Clothes Made Out of the Drapes from The Sound of Music look like Givenchy.
Arkansas gave her an award for being Young Mother of the Year(at age 37?). Didn’t Stalin have medals for using one’s uterus for the glory of the State? Apparantly so. Perhaps Arkansas should reward quality over quantity in future-the lady who raises three kids who go to university on academic scholarships gets a weekend at the beach or something.
I am firmly in the “[as long as you’re financing it yourselves] your reproductive decisions aren’t anyone else’s business” camp, and very rabid on reproductive freedom issues (to either extreme), but this:
