Is It My Fault That I’m Not Married?
Posted July 28, 2010

Our last article, “Why Am I Not Married?!?” has brought in our most diverse range of feedback yet. We’ve received some of the most grateful, convicted, excited letters ever (with the strongest support and thanks coming from young men, interestingly, though we didn’t write it for them). We’ve also had a couple of angry or tearful reactions. Mostly, though, we’ve been sent a wide range of questions, from how to become more eligible, practically, to how to deal with unrequited love, to how to react, emotionally, to the engagements and marriages of friends, while we remain unmarried. We hope to address each of these on Visionary Daughters soon. Today, however, we would like to answer this one.

Are you saying that if I’m not married yet, it’s my fault?

This is called a loaded question. There is much more to this question than the question on the surface, which would be impossible to answer accurately on its face. (Where would you start? “Yes, No, Maybe, It Depends, All of the Above…”)

To unload this question and answer it properly, we need to see that there are five faulty presuppositions behind it.

1. We can “earn” or deserve marriage by our own good deeds. — (Wrong)

God’s plan for our lives began before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4), and cannot be thwarted or altered by us. God is not a cosmic vending machine to be manipulated by our good deed coins. We pointed out in our article that there is a correlation between God’s sovereignty and our duty to action; “good deeds” are always our duty, and we should be striving to be worthy of marriage; but at the end of the day, He may still have other plans for us.

2. Marriage is a reward, singleness is a punishment. — (Wrong)

This is a warped view of both marriage and singleness. Marriage is an instrument God uses for His glory — but so is singleness, whether for a season or for a lifetime (1 Corinthians 7). We believe Scripture teaches that marriage is the normative calling for most believers, and that God created marriage to be a beautiful picture of Christ and His church (Ephesians 5:23-32); a means of creating a godly seed (Malachi 2:15); and a more effective tool for dominion, forging the strengths of two people into a more powerful weapon for His glory (Genesis 2:18).

Marriage is a glorious opportunity, and we believe girls should be working towards marriage as much as is in their power. However, we should be motivated chiefly by one reason. Our interest in marriage should be a hope that we can serve God more effectively married than single. But God is the One who will decide that — if God still has us unmarried, obviously He has determined otherwise, at least for a season.

This means we can be encouraged in our singleness. The single state is not a penalty box, and we are not second-class citizens, and God is not dooming us to a purgatory of ineffectual puttering. He wants us, and has big plans for us, right where we are. We can be used mightily, right now. Our fruit can be significant, today.

On the other hand, if our days now are introspectively focused on our own personal issues and needs and interests, what makes us think we will suddenly become outward-focused and kingdom-focused when we marry?

3. We can reach a level of eligible perfection. — (Wrong)

To ask, in effect, “Are you saying there’s something wrong with me?” presupposes that we could get to a point where there isn’t anything wrong with us. We’ll never reach a point where we’re “fine just the way we are.” That said, a girl can certainly “buffet her body” (and mind, and heart, and character) to a point of being ready for marriage. She just shouldn’t stop there.

We’ve been privileged to know many exemplary young women who were ready for marriage in every way anyone could see, but yet remained unmarried until their late twenties or early thirties. (God’s ways are not our ways… see point 1.) Though each of these girls was already very eligible, none of them waited out her remaining term of singleness in impatience, or stagnation, or bitterness. None of them thought, “I can’t think of any ways to improve on myself, so I must be one of those girls who’s ready already. I’ll just sit here and fold my hands until I get what’s coming to me.” Each one continued to grow, blossom, and bear fruit. Each one remained humble about where she was, and about how much further she could go. They inspired everyone around them, and were a wonderful testimony to the community — to see the humility and growth of these stellar young women, and to see how seriously they took the opportunity of the single season. To the watching outside world, unfamiliar with the picture of an adult daughter serving her family, they were radiant lights and powerful ambassadors of biblical femininity (and God may have partly extended that season for this very reason).

4. Our own eligibility is the sole issue, regardless of the young man’s state. — (Wrong)

One of the big mistakes we often make is to look only at our side of the picture, forgetting that there is another person involved with his own set of situations and issues. A God-ordained marriage involves the preparation of two people, not just one. Remember the girls we mentioned who had been extremely ready and eligible for years before the Lord brought them their husbands? In each case, the Lord was also bringing the young man along on a journey. In one case, the young lady was 31 when her 23-year-old suitor came onto the scene — she laughs to think that, when she became “ready,” he would have been only ten.

In every story, once He brought the pieces together, everyone could see why it was His plan for her to remain unmarried for so long — as they say, hindsight is 20/20. We would be a lot happier in the interim if we would recognize His sovereignty before we see His plan revealed, not just after. And let’s remember that we’re not the only person in this.

5. Something is somebody’s fault. — (Well, that depends…)

This is always likely, in a fallen world — but not necessarily the case in your situation. Sometimes there are other factors involved in God’s timing. See points 1 through 4.

We can reasonably expect everyone involved to have failings — the fathers, mothers, young men, pastors, leaders, etc. — but it’s simply not our place as young women to make them shape up. When we step outside our feminine jurisdiction by trying to tell the men how to do their job, we make the problem worse. Helpful hint: henpecking and scolding men doesn’t help them grow up (and, interestingly, doesn’t make them want to marry us either). In these articles, we’re focusing on our faults as young ladies because they’re the only ones we can fix. They’re also the only ones we authors, as fellow young women, have the authority to address. Sorry, girls, but on Visionary Daughters… everything is your fault.

Botkin Girls Interviewed for Chalcedon Podcast
Posted May 26, 2009

We were very honored to be interviewed by Andrea Schwartz for Chalcedon’s Law and Liberty podcast. You can listen to the interview here.

The Return of This Daughter
Posted April 21, 2009

Visionary daughter Evangeline McNiel writes an open letter to our readers:

Dear Daughters near or far, at home or abroad,

I want to write to you and share how the simple true message of So Much More changed my life and satisfied my unexplainable longings. A phrase from the book broke my heart and pinpointed my error. The contributor wrote, “I began to understand that my calling was not somewhere out their waiting for me to ‘find it,’ but my calling was to help my dad fulfill his calling.”

As an energetic, go-getter gal, I was always planning projects, taking leadership positions, “making waves” as my seaside university’s motto urged us. But it all left me thinking, “Is this God’s best?”

I come from a homeschool family of six. When my senior year came, our family knew no better course than college. All three of my older siblings attended private Christian colleges, so I when I received an offer for a full-ride scholarship to any university in my state, I counted it a blessing. My father was uneasy, but there was so much hype in the air about my acceptance after months of interviews and essays, I did not seriously consider his premonitions.

My first weeks at the university were fascinating for a people-loving girl who had been homeschooled and homechurched most of her life. Living in the dorms, I had running buddies, surfing friends, a ballroom dance clan, international students—it was exciting. Although many of my friends confessed to be Christians, very few were true followers. I was discouraged by the lack of spiritual and academic seriousness, but I made the best of it. Soon I was class representative, president of the Spanish club, a young women’s Bible study leader, an active member of a local church, part of a Hispanic ministry, a straight A student. It all left me so empty, but the novelty of my new independent life kept me going and my reports home positive. I lived in the “Christian dorm” and had good relationships at church, so I was blind to a lot of what was really going on, until the second year.

My second year I was a house parent (“Resident Assistant”) for 63 students in a co-ed dorm. I am to blame for this ridiculous idea. The summer before, I was doing mission work in Mexico City, so my parents had very little input. My new life was the antithesis of a protected stay-at-home daughter. I had to go on night patrol until 3 o’clock in the morning breaking up drinking parties, and going into the depths of a very dark and depraved world. Around this nightmare of a time, I was chosen to represent the school of education for an “Academic Life” promotional booklet. My plans and smile seem so cool and confident, but behind it all I was the most broken, lost and instable as I have ever been. And it wasn’t just me. I felt it in all the girls — the insecurity…the fruit of an unprotected life. “Her focus is clear,” my bio read. I had no focus. I had no idea how to be a good Christian girl. I was lost.

Meanwhile, I read voraciously in search of a real education and deeper purpose. One day I saw a woman from my church mentoring a friend of mine in a local coffee shop. They were reading So Much More. The attractive cover and the words “Visionary Daughters” caught my eye. I will never forget the night I sat on my bed reading that book until 4 in the morning, weeping over it. My heart had ached for a protected mission, a biblically sound mission, an ancient mission. And here it was! What joy! What relief! I was not designed to be an independent woman, but rather part of a man’s life, a helper. And what better man could I help but my dear father?

That next weekend I drove home to present the idea to my family. At first, my parents were surprised at my desire to move home after recently announcing plans to study abroad in Spain and Chile the next year. But at the end of our few days of sharing and crying and much repentance and prayer, my father would have it no other way. I was to come home as soon as I finished my final exams.

I returned back to school and feared what my scholarship director and friends would think and say. My resolution began to crumble when friends reacted in disapproval and even advised me to see a counselor. One day, I was seriously doubting it all as I drove to class when I spotted two bumper stickers that made me angry. “Nice girls never make history” and “Feminism = No more oppression.” Our cars were on the same road, but I thought, Do I want to be driving the same direction as they?

I have passed a joyous year in my father’s house, and our family of 3 adult children is learning how God can use our unity for his glory. My mother is teaching me how to love our family and make home a wonderful place. I help manage meals and hospitality and am beginning to keep the books for the family. My father sends me out to help homeschool families, mentor young girls and share the Gospel with Hispanic women. Vision Forum’s Father-Daughter Retreat and a recent visit to the —– family’s home and Grace Family Baptist Church in Houston sharpened my vision and joined me to like-minded people. If you are a newly returned daughter or if you want to be but you are afraid—don’t be. Have faith in God; He is able to do exceeding abundantly more than you could ever think or imagine.

Evangeline McNiel (r)

Visionary Daughters Interviewed - Final Installment
Posted January 20, 2009

Here is part three of a recent interview a journalist conducted with us.

Interviewer: Tell me about your book: whose idea was it? What are you hoping to accomplish with it? How has it been received?

A&E: We got the idea for writing our book when we were aged 15 and 17. We were nearing adulthood, and faced with the question of “What next?” Who did we want to become? What did we want to live and die for? Our friends seemed to be living on auto-pilot, defaulting to the same decisions all the other girls were making about college, career, relationships and the rest. Our father had always taught us not to passively follow the crowd, but to carefully and deliberately think through every decision, using Scripture as our guide. So we began a rigorous study of the biblical role of women (daughters in particular), and made discoveries so fascinating, counter-cultural and life-transforming that we wanted to share them with every other girl.

We knew there was a need for this book. The young women of our generation have so many questions, and often feel so lost and conflicted. They struggle to understand who they are as women, while surrounded by destructive and confusing stereotypes of women from past and present. They suffer from bad relationships with their family members, and the consequences of that. They don’t understand how they as women should relate to men. They fear they will never marry; they feel guilty about wanting to marry; they’re confused about what to do in the meantime; they’re realizing too late that they may have driven away their chances of marriage by pursuing feminist dreams of their own; and if they eventually marry, they agonize over how to balance their families with their careers and feel guilty about whichever one ends up short-changed. What we found is that the Bible does give the answers to each of these problems. God is not silent on the issues that face young women — He has a place and a purpose for us, if we will only study to find it.

Interviewer: Have you heard of the “modesty movement”? Are you connected to that? What does that entail for you, personally?

A&E: The Bible specifically commands women to dress modestly (1 Tim. 2:9), and we do try to model that. It’s interesting to us that, as a reaction against the damaging effects of the sexual revolution, even many “non-religious” women are returning to modesty and abstinence, and discovering the many benefits that accompany them (a reminder of the wisdom of God’s commands to us). However, we see modesty as a defining characteristic of Christian behavior, not simply as a solution to a cultural problem.

We are not advocates of frumpy flour-sack “modesty” — modesty is only one aspect of what Christian women need to communicate in their dress, radiant femininity being another. Our goal in dress is to communicate that we rejoice in being women, and to encourage the men around us to respect women rather than objectify them.

Visionary Daughters Interviewed: 2nd Installment
Posted December 19, 2008

Interviewer: In your opinion and through your study and experience, what is a woman’s role in life?

A&E: A woman’s role is to honor and serve God, in the sphere He created her for. The Bible tells us that woman was created from the man and for the man (1 Cor. 11:9) to be a helper to him in his mission (Gen. 2:18). (Note: not to be his slave or property.) This is what God created woman for, and is the true essence of femininity: to complement and complete man, to be at his side in taking dominion of the earth. Men and women were created to be different — and those undeniable differences are glorious — but their distinct, complementary roles should work together to achieve one common goal. We believe a woman’s value and importance is in every way equal to a man’s, though her role is different.

Through the whole panorama of Scripture (and through most of history), we see the home and family as woman’s context. Home was not woman’s prison — it was her base of operations, from which she engaged in commerce, ministry, charity, medicine, the arts, and more. The family, though, was always her priority.

Interviewer: What are your views on women and education? Why?

A&E: We believe women should be highly, highly educated, in the right ways and for the right reasons. We encourage girls to strive for a broader, higher and more intellectually honest education than is available at most colleges today. When researching the higher-education options before us a few years ago, Anna Sofia and I studied college syllabi, interviewed students and teachers alike, spent time on several campuses, and then studied the way the best-educated men and women in history have become so. We concluded that colleges do not have the monopoly on higher learning, higher qualifications, and proper training. The historic fact is that the best-educated men and women of history have always been autodidacts: people who took responsibility for their own educations and were self-motivated. Brick-and-mortar institutions and pedagogues have never cornered the market on education, and we would love to see more young women think outside that box, taking the initiative to pursue real education rather than “schooling.”

Interviewer: Do you feel your lifestyle is supported by other Christians, Evangelical Christians, people in general?

A&E: Response to our lifestyle is very mixed, as we would expect. There are those who embrace it wholeheartedly, those who look at it wistfully, those who feel “judged” by it, those who try to misunderstand and misinterpret us, and the few who send hate-mail. However, we’ve never needed the affirmation of others in how we live — the affirmation of God is what we seek.

Visionary Daughters Interviewed — 1st Installment
Posted December 5, 2008

Here are a few questions a journalist recently posed to us, with our answers.

Interviewer: When and how did you start your blog? What role did you think you needed to fill with it, what purpose does it serve?

A&E: We began “Visionary Daughters” three years ago, upon finishing our book So Much More, as a way to inspire and encourage other young women to think and live biblically. We want to see young women break free from the smothering expectations of society, to be visionary, to think outside the box, to educate themselves more widely, and to focus on constructive family relationships. We want girls to have an attitude of victory, rather than survival, and to understand the glory and vastness of the role God created for unmarried women.

We see a particular need for girls to build better relationships with their fathers, as the effects of this relationship spill over into so many other areas of their lives — they way they view God, the way they relate to men, the way they view themselves, the decisions they make regarding family, and more. In our generation, we are seeing a fundamental disconnect between fathers and children, and daughters are suffering from this lack of fatherly guidance, involvement, affection, affirmation, and protection. We’ve also seen committed daughters win the hearts of their indifferent fathers and build a wonderful relationship that transformed the entire family. In Malachi 4:6, the Bible instructs us in the importance of “turn[ing] the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers,” and that is one of the greatest goals of our ministry.

Interviewer: Who exactly are you trying to reach?

A&E: Although we’ve received overwhelming feedback from almost every demographic — young and elderly, men and women alike — our audience has always been other young women in the same stage of life as we (single). These women come from all different backgrounds, financial situations, and nationalities, but we are united in our commitment to being biblically faithful, intellectually honest, and consistent.

For those who have heard about “stay-at-home” daughterhood and are curious, we want to give an open, honest picture of how we believe and live.

Interviewer: Do you agree with other Christians who say devout, Christian womanhood and feminism are not mutually exclusive? Do you consider yourselves feminists?

A&E: Some define feminism as the belief that women have rights. We absolutely agree that women have rights — we also recognize that all rights must be bestowed by some Higher Source. Feminism is not the source of our rights — God is the author of our rights, as our founders recognized, and it was He who gave women property rights, marital rights, and divorce rights (for example), as well as laws that protect women from abuse and neglect. The feminist movement declared woman able to author her own, new rights — to be like God, determining right and wrong for herself. We stand for men’s and women’s original, biblical rights — we stand against the selfish autonomy of either.

Some define feminism as the belief that women and men are of equal value. We believe they are also. The Bible declares men’s and women’s equal standing and value before God, and teaches this more consistently than any other religious or secular doctrine. In Scripture, man’s work and woman’s work are equally valid — wifehood, motherhood, homemaking and femininity are not belittled, and women are not guilt-manipulated to live and act like men. On the contrary; woman’s distinctiveness from man is praised and honored, and her unique role is held vital.

Speaking historically as well as theologically, Christianity is the only social, spiritual and political force that gives women true freedom and power. It is the anti-Christian religions (including Marxism, Islam, and feminism) that demean, undervalue, and exploit women; throughout history, it was the Christian societies that truly valued women, protected women and honored women (insofar as those societies were faithful to the Bible’s actual teachings).

One major antithesis between us and the feminists is their insistence on egalitarianism. God is a God of order, not of anarchy, and He created spheres of sovereignty and hierarchies of authority. Thus we would define feminism as rebellion against God and His created order; a pursuit of autonomy; a fight for the right to get our own way. This is why we see feminism and Christian womanhood as mutually exclusive, and “Christian” feminism as an oxymoron.

More questions and answers coming up soon…

Interview with the Botkin Sisters: Part 2
Posted February 13, 2008

Q: Where did you get all your ideas about the role of daughters? What groups did you grow up around? Were you raised in a particular group of conservative homeschoolers?

A: Some Americans presume that we grew up in a very conservative, sheltered, homeschooling crowd, and were never confronted with people who believed differently than we. Actually, the opposite is true. Until two years ago, all our friends, save one, had been college girls or were/had been in the military. From the time we were little girls, many young women like these new Christians have loved coming to our home to learn from our parents. The girls we spent the most time with while writing our book were Christian girls from non-homeschooling, often non-Christian backgrounds, sometimes abusive backgrounds. Since our father has ministered to so many different kinds of people – Muslims, political leaders, college kids, military veterans, television and film professionals, journalists, non-Christian public school kids, businessmen, missionaries, refugees – these were the people we grew up around (though always supervised and overseen by our parents. We spent time with these people as a family). Until traveling to the States two years ago, one of the crowds we were most unfamiliar with was the conservative American homeschooling crowd.

We both spent our most formative years in New Zealand, an island paradise and spiritual wasteland. Militant feminism got a foothold in NZ at least a decade before it did in most Western nations, giving us a chilling picture of what America may look like in ten years. More clearly than any book, sermon, or lecture could have done, seeing feminism’s natural, devastating aftermath in a more developed stage revealed to us just how terrible are its ravages. It was obvious even to many of the secular pundits. Even many of the most liberal college girls were disgusted with the feminist “utopia” they had inherited — particularly by the men it produced. We heard “Where have all the men gone?” everywhere we went. Women had long ago charged forward to seize the authority they were not meant to bear, and led in the churches, the government, the workplace, and the family. The result was a society of families in shambles.

This is the world we grew up in, and these were the people that we ministered to. We were never able to rely on homeschooling support, like-minded friends, or ministries to help us develop our convictions. The principle of being directed by Scripture alone was something our parents had always made important to us; our circumstances made it essential. We had nothing but Scripture to tell us how to live (the foreign culture around us, to which we had no loyalties or inundation, didn’t attract us at all), and as we both approached our “graduating” years, we plunged into our personal studies of the role of daughters in earnest. Our sense of urgency to find the real answers, and share our findings, was largely fueled by our hundreds of hours of serious conversations with both college students and college faculty, both on and off campus. We became intimately familiar with the litany of issues and crises that affected girls in NZ, Australia, Britain, Europe, Asia, South Africa, and America.

We realize that “experience” is not a pre-requisite to being able to read, understand, and exposit the Word of God, but this background, coupled with the benefit of having two extremely wise parents who’ve been around the block and have the stories to prove it, helped us cement our thinking.

And after we were established in our convictions and well into our book, we were astonished to find that there were people on the other side of the world who had come to many of the same conclusions, long before we did. Guess they must have been reading from the same Bible…

If you have a question you’d like to add to the list of questions we’ll be answering, please send it to damsels (AT) visionarydaughters (DOT) com.

Interview with the Botkin Sisters
Posted February 6, 2008

Stacy McDonald, co-author of Passionate Housewives Desperate for God, recently conducted an interview with us about our book, So Much More, soliciting questions from women all over the blogosphere. We are pleased to be able to post the first Q&As from the interview now: it can also be read on her blog, www.yoursacredcalling.blogspot.com.

Stacy: You were very young when you wrote this book. Do you have any regrets about anything you said? Have you changed your mind on anything?

Botkin Sisters: In the two years since So Much More was published, we have had countless emails and numerous conversations with girls all over the world. Though the majority of the response to SMM has been overwhelmingly positive, we have also been berated; we’ve been misrepresented; we’ve been challenged; we’ve been sharpened. During these past years of intense study and travel, we have become very familiar with a litany of positions, misunderstandings, and misinterpretations of Scripture concerning the role of daughters.

Our positions have not changed. They have been strengthened. Now, at ages 22 and 20, we believe more firmly than ever in the positions we took as teenage girls. However, we understand more fully the need to be very, very careful in introducing potentially explosive concepts, ensuring that our wording is theologically precise and unmistakably clear.

Our few regrets about the content in So Much More pertain to weaknesses in wording and our abilities as writers, which we are determined to improve by God’s grace and for His glory.

After almost seven years in New Zealand, we were a bit out of the loop on how some words had become loaded (e.g. patriarchy, headship) and many ideas had taken on negative connotations, and we neglected to use the additional definitions and qualifiers that may have been necessary.

So Much More, like its authors, has flaws. But God has used it in the lives of more young women than we had ever imagined, and we continue to get beautiful testimonies of repentance and renewal, of transformed lives and families. In spite of its failings, we are thankful we went to press with it when we did. Even if the book were perfect, there will always be critics who willfully misunderstand what is written and others who criticize the content without reading it.

Stacy: To some degree, I bet we can all relate to what you’ve said here. I know I’ve said and written things I wish I would have worded a bit differently. Sometimes we don’t realize how someone is going to take something we’ve said until after we’ve said it. It’s all part of the art of good communication, which takes time to master; and which also brings us to our next question.

Q. Are you, as teenage girls, setting yourselves up as teachers of parents?

Botkin Sisters: Not at all. We recognize that we are unqualified to teach those who are in a later season of life than we. Our intention was never to instruct fathers or mothers, husbands or wives, but only single young women in the same stage of life that we find ourselves. We wanted to encourage unmarried young women everywhere to honor their parents and live each day in a way that glorifies God, serves others, and advances the Kingdom.

We have tried to be very careful to not direct any of our teaching to fathers or mothers. When asked by parents for parenting advice, we either direct them to our parents, or address our advice to their daughters instead, for the parents to pass along if appropriate. In our book, we even included in the appendices an interview we conducted with our father, so that any instruction that might be helpful to parents would be coming from him, and not us.

Stacy: Are you ever concerned that by being at home you are potentially missing out on “opportunities” or other “good experiences?”

Botkin Sisters: Not a chance! Now, we should probably state that we did not choose this life based on the “experiences” and “opportunities” it would offer us. It’s bad epistemology to build our orthopraxy (the practical application of our orthodoxy) on the foundation of pragmatism. We must base our decisions on the patterns, principles and precepts we see in Scripture, rather than on how much “fun” or “self-enrichment” they will afford.

That said… no, we never feel like we’re missing out on anything that God wants for us. We have had many other opportunities offered us, but we have foregone them for better things. The way the Lord has blessed our family, and has brought us incredible opportunities to serve Him, leaves us no time to lament that we are not professional concert harpists (for example.) The experiences we are living now fill our lives to overflowing. Our cup runneth over.

Stacy: How did you learn to write? What general methods, philosophy, or curricula did your parents use to teach you the art of writing?

Botkin Sisters: Well… we are by no means great writers. Our medium has always been less important to us than our message. The main thing our parents did was encourage us to have something to say. Teaching us how to think was much more important to them than teaching us how to diagram sentences. Even though our mother did teach us the mechanics of writing, it didn’t make much sense to us until we had something we passionately wanted to say, and knew the importance of saying it well.

They didn’t use a curriculum, but here are a few things our parents did to help us develop our writing skills:

· They both speak very well. They are conscientious about what they say and the way they say it (and are both always working on improving their grammar.)

· Our mother read to us a couple of hours each day when we were little, and our father always read aloud to us at the dinner table – Scripture, and also other books, articles, letters, news items, etc.

· They encouraged us to read extensively from the best writers.

· They taught us to recognize and appreciate what makes some writing good, and some poor.

· They had us practice. Each day we would synopsize what we had read in our history, theology, science or literature reading (which had the added purpose of forcing us to pay attention, understand, process, and remember what we learned in our reading).

· They are both excellent and ruthless editors. Thanks to the high standards they held us to, we rewrote So Much More over nine times.

Incidentally, neither of us ever wanted to be writers, or, for that matter, filmmakers. We only wrote our book because we saw that there was a need for it. After it was published, we saw a need for a documentary, so our family created “The Return of the Daughters.” Both projects had the blessing of our father.

Stacy: There was a rumor circulating that your book says that girls who go to college are harlots. Did you say this or is this what you believe?

Botkin Sisters: Of course not and of course not. We are astonished that anyone would circulate such a false and destructive accusation. No, we do not believe that Scripture teaches that a woman who goes to college is a harlot. To read what we actually said and what we actually believe, click here, where we have posted our answer to this rumor in full.

Stacy: Will your own homemaking, when the time comes that you marry, be less exciting and stimulating to you than your present life? Is the life that you’re living now really going to prepare you for the roles of wife and mother?

Botkin Sisters: Those who know us only by our public appearances see only a tiny part of our life, and can’t know how much we enjoy doing the “unglamorous” work that makes a family thrive. We have laundry to wash, hungry people to feed, floors to mop, families to reach out to through hospitality, and men in the family who can always use an organizer, stenographer, editor, or someone to iron their shirts. This is our real life, and we prefer it. A few times a year we have opportunity to, in a sense, reap the harvest we have sown by writing, and it often involves going public, but to us it’s just another privilege of service, like taking a meal to a needy family. We and our parents believe this is the kind of life that will best prepare us for marriage to any kind of man.

Certainly, in several ways marriage will still be a transition, but that’s exactly what we’ve been trained to deal with. Our life has been a roller coaster of transitions from one season to another. Our parents wanted to give us an education that would prepare us for any position of service in the real world, and our life experiences have ranged from composing an orchestral score for a WWII documentary to milking cows in the mud. We don’t really see some tasks as more “glamorous” than others. All work is noble, and with the right attitude, all work is fun. We look forward to the season of morning sickness and changing diapers, as another avenue of service to God.

Our mother’s example, and the example of the Proverbs 31 woman, teaches that being an excellent helpmeet, mother, and homemaker requires training and expertise in countless different fields. Our mother excels in all the arts of homemaking, but she is so much more than a housekeeper. In order to be a real helpmeet to her husband, she needed to be ready for anything he would need her to do to help him govern their estate and disciple the nations. The Proverbs 31 woman is the model example of a woman whose activities were much broader than housekeeping – she did many works from home that praised her in the gates, in addition to keeping the house and training her children. This is the balance we are trying to strike now, to prepare us for our future roles, Lord willing, as helpmeets.

Interview with the Botkin sisters
Posted October 12, 2007

Stacy McDonald, author of Raising Maidens of Virtue, will be conducting an interview with us in a few weeks, and is soliciting suggestions for questions from her readers.

From her blog, “Your Sacred Calling”:

Several weeks from now, I will be interviewing the Botkin sisters; and in a way, so will you! Starting today, I’m inviting my readers to send in their questions regarding the Botkins’ book, So Much More. In addition, if you have questions regarding the everyday lives or beliefs of Anna Sofia or Elizabeth, this is your time to ask them!

All questions should be sent to me at Botkin Interview Questions by October 23rd. Please note, questions will be compiled, integrated, and edited as needed for space and brevity. Please keep your questions direct, brief, and gracious. Questions will not be accepted during or after the interview. Please send your questions on or before the aforementioned date.