Categories

Mothers, Daughters, and the Beauty Subject
Posted September 18, 2012

Us with our mother in 2001, ages 16 and 14… before the days of hairstyling, makeup, or clothes that fit.

As the launch date for our “Reclaiming Beauty” webinar draws near, we’ve been thinking about what an important part mothers play in this part of their daughters’ lives. Though the webinar is targeted at young women, we’ve persuaded our mother to share some helpful words for other mothers on how they should approach this issue and help their daughters with it. We considered having her share this as a guest in one of the sessions, but decided this message was so important that we wanted to make it available to everyone for free. Please listen to this message. Pass it around to your friends. And don’t forget to sign up for the webinar! September 25 is just around the corner.

“Trapped in a Tower” Asks for Advice
Posted April 7, 2012

Dear Botkin sisters,

I just turned 18 years old and I have a question for you. My name is Rapunzel and I’m in the middle of a very challenging situation. I’ll give you some backstory.

I’ve spent my whole life living at home in a tower with my mother, who told me that the tower is the only place that I could be safe from people who want to steal my hair. I’d always been happy at home, and felt like my mother and I had a fairly good relationship, until recently. A few days ago, I mentioned that I wanted to leave the tower for my birthday. You see, I really wanted to go see some mysterious lights that always appear in the sky on my birthday – ON MY BIRTHDAY – which of course has always made me think that they were somehow for me! Mother said it was a bad idea, that there were ruffians and thugs out there, that I couldn’t handle myself, etc. I tried to convince her otherwise, but then she exploded and said that I could never leave the tower.

Does that seem fair to you? It didn’t to me! I was still just as determined to see the lights! So I came up with an excuse to get her to go on a trip for a few days, and then I carried out a brilliant plan. Right before the fight with Mother, I had knocked out a thief who climbed in my window, and trapped him in my closet. (Can’t handle myself out there? Tell that to my frying pan!) After Mother left, I made a bargain with him: that he take me to see the floating lights and bring me back safely, and I would return to him a tiara that I had taken out of his satchel. He basically agreed. We’d be back before Mother returned and she would never even have to know.

I admit that I had a lot of conflicting emotions before jumping out the window. I just had to do it. I admitted that I shouldn’t. And then I did!

Being completely free for the first time was AMAZING!!! I consoled myself that what Mother didn’t know wouldn’t kill her. Then I realized this would kill her. I was having so much fun! And yet I felt like a horrible daughter. I decided I was going back. I decided I was NEVER going back! I felt like a despicable human being. I felt like it was the Best. Day. Ever! I was alternately laughing hysterically and sobbing uncontrollably. My guide, Flynn Rider, tried to play on my feelings of guilt, to get me to give up and go back, but that’s when I really strengthened my resolve to just put those feelings behind me and stick to my dream, and I didn’t have any qualms after that.

I got my first taste of what people in the world are really like when Flynn took me into a pub. The men there seemed worse than the kind of ruffians and thugs my mother had always warned me about! As they were in the middle of trying to kill Flynn, I begged them to FIND THEIR HUMANITY and asked if any of them had ever had a dream. Guess what? They all had! It turned out that beneath their scary exteriors, they were just people, with feelings and hobbies and dreams, like me! I guess they just needed a nice young girl to draw it out of them. That’s when I first started to wonder if my mom had always been wrong about the world.

After several more scrapes, I was starting to feel really bonded with Flynn. To be honest, I was starting to really like him, and he seemed to really like me. At that point, you’ll never guess who showed up to end my adventure but Mother! She tried to get me to come back home. She called Flynn a wanted thief. I told her that he liked me. She laughed at me. She said a man like that would just leave me as soon as he got what he wanted (the tiara). For the first time in my life, I openly defied her! I refused to listen, or to go back with her, and so she went off without me.

The next day was my Big Day! Flynn and I went into the kingdom together, we saw the townsfolk, we danced and drew, and at sunset… we got to see the floating lights! I found out they were lanterns sent out every year to commemorate the birth of the Lost Princess. It was magical, and extremely romantic, and I knew then that I had to be with Flynn.

But then my dream began to turn into a nightmare. Though I had felt it was wrong to run away, everything had seemed to be turning out so well as a result. Suddenly things started to become awful! Flynn seemed to have abandoned me, some truly bad thugs tried to kidnap me (well, maybe they have dreams on the inside too, I forgot to ask), and then Mother showed up just at the right moment. Now it seemed like Mother was right about Flynn, right about the world, right about everything! There was nothing left for me in the kingdom. So I went back to Mother. And I felt terrible about how everything had worked out.

So I sat on my bed back in my tower to think over everything that had happened. I was looking at a little flag Flynn gave me that had the kingdom’s ensign of the sun on it – and I suddenly realized that I’ve been drawing shapes like that my whole life without even knowing it. !!! Then I had a flashback to a mosaic I had seen in the kingdom, of the Lost Princess as a baby with green eyes and blonde hair, and I realized I have green eyes and blonde hair. !!! And then I had a flashback to when I had tried on the tiara that I found in Flynn’s satchel and it looked amazing on me. !!! What are the odds? Couldn’t this only mean one thing?! I’m starting to get a very strong feeling that I’ve always been more special than I thought. And I don’t actually remember being born to my mother. What if… she’s been lying to me my whole life? What if she’s not really my mom? What if she kidnapped me at birth? What if I’m actually the Lost Princess?

So, I was feeling very tempted to go tell Mother that I’m on to her, and then I stumbled across your website, Visionary Daughters.

Now I’m confused about what a girl in my situation should do. Should I trick my mom and run away secretly again? Or should I be more upfront in my defiance this time? Wouldn’t you agree that I was justified in running away the first time, since she wasn’t actually my mom, even though I thought she was at the time? Should I go try to find Flynn again? Should I present myself to the king and queen and say I’m pretty sure I’m their daughter?

On your website, you don’t appear to give any advice to anyone in my particular situation, which makes it seem like you don’t realize that there are people out there with different circumstances from yours. I like the principles that you lay out, but I don’t think it’s possible to obey any of them because I don’t think that God has given me the ideal situation. And I seriously doubt that God has given biblical guidelines for girls in situations like mine. What do you think?

Sincerely,

Rapunzel

What would you say to Rapunzel? Check back in a few days for our response.

Three Cheers for Victoria Botkin!
Posted May 10, 2009

Happy Mother’s Day to the best mother in the world! Today we would like to honor our mother by posting the tribute that I read aloud to her on my 21st birthday:

I would like to take this opportunity to call to your attention the ones that really deserve the credit for my 21 years of life. I had very little hand in it, I can assure you.

First, my Heavenly Father, Who is the author of my existence and my future – my Sustainer and the Giver of Eternal Life.

And my earthly father, my God-ordained authority and protector.

And the woman that I call “blessed.” A woman who lost her life for His sake and found it, who made her husband great, and was subordinate to him in everything, though inferior to him in nothing.

My mother was God’s instrument to teach me what it meant to be a virtuous woman. Partly through her verbal instruction, but mostly through the silent example of her actions and deeds. Most of all, through the way she executed her duty to complement and complete my father. She is his perfect match and the /sine qua non/ of his greatness. She delights him with her company and conversation, sustains him with her strength, stimulates and sharpens him with her wisdom and intelligence, emboldens him with her praise, bolsters him with her cheerfulness, comforts him with her love, and heartens him with her courage.

Maybe the most significant way that she contributed to his success was by instilling his vision into his children. The things she chose for us to study, the things she taught us were important, the projects she encouraged us to pursue, were all in perfect harmony with his objective for our family.

She is uniquely suited to be the teacher of his children because the qualities that our father wants his family to be known for – dominion focus, ingenuity, creativity, entrepreneurialism, love of learning, a pioneer spirit – are all qualities that our mother models in every thing that she does.

The most important things I learned come from observing her two greatest strengths. First of all, her Humility.

I see her humility in her willingness to be overshadowed by Dad. She prefers to bask in his shadow than to chase after the fame and adulation that could so easily and rightly be hers. I’ve never known a woman who cared about personal glory less, or who deserved it more. She will be remembered with more respect than her contemporaries, who fought with religious zeal for recognition and prestige, and now have no one to rise up and call them “blessed.”

The other strength I would mention is her Courage.

Like a true pioneer, Mother was never affected by the fact that she was often standing alone, being “the only one” faithful in an entire country, and doing things no one else was doing. She never even considered the wave of disapproval that came from all sides for her decision to follow Scripture instead of modern culture.

At the altar, Mother promised to go wherever our father went, and to gratefully share in whatever Providence had in store for him, sometimes respect and appreciation, sometimes persecution and rejection, sometimes a high station, sometimes a low one. It’s her calm and unquenchable energy, her willingness to forego comfort and stability, her ability to adapt gracefully to any situation, that allows my father’s heart to safely trust in her. When a man’s heart can safely trust in his wife, it allows him to be a visionary, an entrepreneur, who can live boldly and dare to do great things.

Last but not least, I appreciate her courage to go through painful labor to bring me into the world. The fact that I’m here to stand before you now is a testimony to that courage. It’s that courage that I especially would like to honor today.

Jennie Chancey on “Curriculum Advice”
Posted October 8, 2008

From Jennie Chancey’s review of our mother’s two new CDs of homeschooling advice — “At Last: The Missing Link in Home Education Is Here!”

A lot of moms I meet wish they had older mentors who could guide them as they take baby steps into home education–or who could give them a reality check a few years into the journey. For them such a mentor is the “missing link” in home education and child training. I’ve been blessed to have my mother, my mother-in-law, and one other lady whose influence had a profound impact on both my husband and me when we were newlyweds just beginning this journey of parenthood: Victoria Botkin.

Matt and I first met the Botkin family shortly after our honeymoon, as we sat starry-eyed on a pew at church. The Botkins lived 45 minutes away from us and invited us over for a meal, then another, then more and still more until they moved away two and a half years later. We got far more than food. We experienced a spiritual and intellectual feast that gave us even greater clarity of vision for our goals as a couple and as a growing family. The Botkin home became legend and still lives in our memories, colored by the warmth of their fellowship and the depths of their conversation.

I’ve often looked back on the times we spent in the Botkin home and wished I had copies of our conversations on tap so I could replay them whenever I needed a boost or a shot in the arm of practical “how-to.” Well, now I’ve got exactly that, and you can get it, too!

Yesterday evening I received previews of two new messages Victoria has recorded for home educating mothers (augmented by sections recorded by her husband and children). Titled simply “Curriculum Advice,” these two messages are absolutely chock-full of practical, simple, breathe-easy guidance to help you create an atmosphere of learning in your home and lead your children to read, think, and communicate. Victoria explains things so clearly that you might begin to think, “This sounds too simple.” Don’t be deceived: It is simple. While training and teaching children is a lot of work and requires a great deal of sacrifice, it does not have to be stressful or difficult. Victoria demonstrates that we make it so when we load ourselves and our children down with textbooks and “methods” that we haven’t carefully examined or sifted through.

Be sure to read the whole review here.

Jennie is also sponsoring a giveaway of these messages — you’ll find the details in the full review.

Curriculum Advice from Victoria Botkin: CD release
Posted October 7, 2008

After much demand, our dear mother has just produced two CDs containing her top homeschooling tips. For the last 20 years Mother has been ministering to young homeschooling mommies around the world, giving them confidence, enthusiasm, and a vision for the importance of their labors. Now, for the first time, her pearls of wisdom are available to all.

VOLUME 1, Ages 3-8

Homeschooling. Lots of families have done it. But can you do it? How hard is it? What does it actually look like? How do you know if you’re on the right track for success?

Victoria Botkin has seven well-educated children who love home education and who plan to continue the tradition when they have children of their own. This inspiring home educator will tell you how you can teach your child ­ at home ­ successfully, inexpensively, calmly, and with the powerful confidence that you are doing the right thing before God. Her curriculum advice will motivate you and change your life.

Young mothers will not only gain countless practical ideas, but confidence, enthusiasm, and a vision for the importance of their labors.

Learn about:

Developing the right attitude
Choosing materials
Choosing curriculum
Inspiring them with creativity
Turning your home into an incubator of curiosity, exploration and discovery
And much more!

VOLUME 2, Ages 8-14

Curriculum catalogs tell homeschooling parents to choose from a confusing array of 25,000 products. Government educators say, “Don’t even try homeschooling unless you use our multi-million dollar curriculum.” Then there is Victoria Botkin.

Her advice will help you relax and enjoy the high calling of motherhood. This successful home educator discloses the wisdom needed to educate children 8-14 at home. As an added bonus, you will hear from her seven well-educated children. If you want to combine a godly home life with high academic standards, listen carefully to these CDs.

Learn about:

Guiding children into character, maturity and integrity
How children can take responsibility for their own education
Teaching children to love writing
How to use the media
Helping your child develop a vision for the future
Recognizing and encouraging your children’s gifts
Teaching life skills
And much more!

Go to FirstPacificMedia.com to purchase these messages today! These messages are also available as $8 digital downloads.

Mother’s Day Tribute
Posted May 12, 2008

This Mother’s Day we would like to re-post the tribute that I read aloud to our dear mother Victoria Botkin, a true dominion woman, on my 21st birthday:

I would like to take this opportunity to call to your attention the ones that really deserve the credit for my 21 years of life. I had very little hand in it, I can assure you.

First, my Heavenly Father, Who is the author of my existence and my future – my Sustainer and the Giver of Eternal Life.

And my earthly father, my God-ordained authority and protector.

And the woman that I call “blessed.” A woman who lost her life for His sake and found it, who made her husband great, and was subordinate to him in everything, though inferior to him in nothing.

My mother was God’s instrument to teach me what it meant to be a virtuous woman. Partly through her verbal instruction, but mostly through the silent example of her actions and deeds. Most of all, through the way she executed her duty to complement and complete my father. She is his perfect match and the sine qua non of his greatness. She delights him with her company and conversation, sustains him with her strength, stimulates and sharpens him with her wisdom and intelligence, emboldens him with her praise, bolsters him with her cheerfulness, comforts him with her love, and heartens him with her courage.

Maybe the most significant way that she contributed to his success was by instilling his vision into his children. The things she chose for us to study, the things she taught us were important, the projects she encouraged us to pursue, were all in perfect harmony with his objective for our family.

She is uniquely suited to be the teacher of his children because the qualities that our father wants his family to be known for – dominion focus, ingenuity, creativity, entrepreneurialism, love of learning, a pioneer spirit – are all qualities that our mother models in every thing that she does.

The most important things I learned come from observing her two greatest strengths. First of all, her Humility.

I see her humility in her willingness to be overshadowed by Dad. She prefers to bask in his shadow than to chase after the fame and adulation that could so easily and rightly be hers. I’ve never known a woman who cared about personal glory less, or who deserved it more. She will be remembered with more respect than her contemporaries, who fought with religious zeal for recognition and prestige, and now have no one to rise up and call them “blessed.”

The other strength I would mention is her Courage.

Like a true pioneer, Mother was never affected by the fact that she was often standing alone, being “the only one” faithful in an entire country, and doing things no one else was doing. She never even considered the wave of disapproval that came from all sides for her decision to follow Scripture instead of modern culture.

At the altar, Mother promised to go wherever our father went, and to gratefully share in whatever Providence had in store for him, sometimes respect and appreciation, sometimes persecution and rejection, sometimes a high station, sometimes a low one. It’s her calm and unquenchable energy, her willingness to forego comfort and stability, her ability to adapt gracefully to any situation, that allows my father’s heart to safely trust in her. When a man’s heart can safely trust in his wife, it allows him to be a visionary, an entrepreneur, who can live boldly and dare to do great things.

He knew, as I did, that whenever times were the toughest, that’s when Mother is the strongest. That’s why, seven years ago, Dad was not nervous about asking her to leave her country that she loved, to follow him to the ends of the earth.

Last but not least, I appreciate her courage to go through painful labor to bring me into the world. The fact that I’m here to stand before you now is a testimony to that courage. It’s that courage that I especially would like to honor today.

What About Mom?
Posted October 26, 2006

Why did So Much More focus on fathers, not mothers?

A few people have noted, with some concern, that our book placed a great emphasis on the father-daughter relationship, without much mention of mothers. They are worried that So Much More was off-balance in this regard. If by “off-balance,” they mean we talked more about fathers than mothers, they are absolutely right. If when they say “off-balance,” they think we believe fathers are important and mothers aren’t, they missed the point of the book.

One theme subtly directing the whole book is that mothers who mother according to biblical patterns are of inestimable value and incomprehensible influence. Our goal in writing this book was to equip the young woman to become this kind of wife and mother.

The Bible places stress on the importance of both parents, commanding children to honor and obey both father and mother (Exodus 20:12, Deuteronomy 5:16, Ephesians 6:1).So Much More‘s emphasis on the father doesn’t preclude the importance of the mother, any more than the existence of a book on mathematics proves the author thinks biology is less important. Obviously, to have a balanced, thorough understanding, we need books on both.

Our intention was to focus, in this book, on fathers and daughters, based on a need we were personally seeing in the United States, New Zealand, Australia and Europe. This need was a serious lack of teaching about the role a father should play in his daughter’s life. We thought that need was screaming to be addressed for a number of reasons. Here is one of them, quoted verbatim from So Much More.

In this generation, girls are facing a lot of problems. In fact, this year young women are facing a lot more problems than they did a century ago. Some of these are novel problems invented by modern times. We know more than we wish to know about the problems troubling young women, because ever since we were little girls young women have been coming to our home to get a taste of functional family life and pour out their troubled hearts.

They are facing all kinds of complications, conundrums, cynicism and confusion over where they’re headed in life. They struggle with a proper idea of femininity and masculinity, a healthy view of authority and submission, a sense of direction and priority, the concept of protection and security, and an elementary understanding of what it means to be daughters of God.

We’ve found that these girls all have one more thing in common: they are missing a functional, confiding, loving relationship with their fathers.

Oh sure, they have happy, casual buddy relationships with their dads, but this is not a substitute for a strong, biblical relationship that edifies, inspires and strengthens both the father and the daughter.

Is their missing relationship with their fathers the root of all their other problems? No, not the only root. But we believe, after years of studying both God’s Word and modern times, that the forgotten principles of fatherly protection and daughterly honor are the missing dynamic girls need in leading fruitful, stable, happy lives which will give honor to God. We do not believe that the father-daughter relationship is somehow more important or special than the mother-daughter relationship, or the father-son relationship, nor do we mean to breath into this relationship a kind of super-special, mystical quality never seen in the Bible. But we do believe the father-daughter relationship is one of those being more ignored and abused this generation than others, with distastrous and heartbreaking repercussions. Girls are hurting from the absence of strong, biblical relationships with their fathers, and repairing these should be a priority for the young women of our generation. (Chapter 2, pp 15,16)

In other words, one of the reasons we chose this angle was because the father-daughter relationship was being neglected. As we were researching what teaching is available to daughters, we were delighted that girls have access to such resources as Stacy McDonald’s wonderful Raising Maidens of Virtue, as well as one of our childhood favorites, Beautiful Girlhood by Karen Andreola, and numerous others which by no means ignore the father but place special focus on the relationship between the mother and the daughter. Anna and I have talked about writing a book about mothers and daughters someday. Maybe we will wait until, if the Lord wills, we are mothers ourselves. Maybe we will leave it to women who are better writers and can explain themselves without causing confusion.

But fathers are more than “the missing part of the puzzle.” There are other reasons we think teaching about the father-daughter relationship is particularly important.

#2. Because if girls don’t have good relationships with their fathers, there will be vitally important things they fail to learn about their Heavenly Father and their future husbands. Here is another excert from So Much More:

The fact that God describes himself as a Father to us shows that the position of earthly father is like an earthly reflection of God. To understand God’s nature as our “Father,” we need to understand what a father is for and how we are supposed to relate to our fathers. This is why it’s so important to God that we show our fathers love, honor and obedience. … The virtues we learn by being good daughters to our fathers on earth help us in being good daughters to the King, and prepare us for this life and the life to come. Being protected by our fathers teaches us how to be protected, loved, and cherished, and the responsibilities that go with this blessing — how to be faithful, how to be trusting and how to have a yielded heart. Learning how to relate this way to our earthly fathers will teach us to relate this way to our Heavenly Father.

#3. Because, notwithstanding its teaching on the importance of mothers, the Bible places special emphasis on fathers as the heads of their households. The theme of Scripture is patriarchal, not matriarchal. The father is given special responsibility for the rest of his family. It seemed logical, in a book primarily about familial relationships, to point readers chiefly to the headship of their fathers.

#4. Because the state of relationships with fathers can determine the quality of all other familial relationships. As the head of the family, his strong connection with everyone else is the root of family unity and harmony.

It’s not just daughters who are suffering from solid relationships with their fathers.
When a father doesn’t have his daughter’s heart, her respect, her support and her help, he is weakened. And when the head of the family is weakened, the whole family is weakened. This generation in particular is marked by weak familial relationships, we believe because of a lack of recognition of the father’s headship. The poorness of his relationship with his wife, his sons and his daughters, we think, is the root of the rest of the relationship problems. As young women striving to “teach the [even] younger women,” we can’t exhort sons to strengthen their relationships with their fathers, or wives to submit to their husbands. But we can, and will, encourage girls to fight with all their might against the inherently anti-Christian, marxist stereotype of “dopey dad,” and build their fathers up to be greater men.

#5. Because, thanks to the homeschooling movement, most homeschooled children have pretty strong relationships with their mothers. Homeschooling started out as primarily a mothers’ movement, and though many fathers approved the decision to homeschool, often they gave most the responsibility of raising and educating the children to the mother. Hence, a strong bond between children and mothers, but a weak one between children and fathers. What should give us great cause to rejoice is that in this generation, we are finally seeing fathers turn their hearts to their children, and the homeschooling movement is becoming the biblically balanced movement it should be.

#6. Because disconnection between fathers and children is an interestingly serious greivance to God, and invokes peculiarly severe judgment. In the very last verse of the Old Testament, we read of the mission of John the Baptist. “”…And he will turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse.” (Malachi 4:6) Bad relationships with fathers (note: not mothers!) incur national judgment!

We read of John’s mission again in Luke 1:16,17: “And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias [Elijah], to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” This is amazing! “Turn[ing] the hearts of the fathers to the children” is compared with turning the disobedient to righteousness, and prepares the people for the Lord!

This was our mission in writing So Much More — to turn the hearts of the daughters to their fathers. From the start, that was the goal of the project and the main theme of the book.

By the way, So Much More was nearly named “The Forgotten Dynamics of the Father-Daughter Relationship,” or something similar. But everyone whose opinion we asked immediately responded, “Oh, but your book is about so much more!” Which is a rather broad topic… but we took the hint and adopted the title.

Though we tried to pack in as much information as we could, So Much More needs more. It is by no means complete, and even though many people have kindly called it “comprehensive,” it really isn’t. Every day we think of more that should have gone into it. Does anybody want to volunteer to write Even More?