Strength and Dignity for Daughters, Part 1: Discovering Patriolatry (TBB)

The “TBB” in the name of this post means that it is part of The Big Box series. If you’re new to Scarlet Letters, read the introductory post to see what The Big Box is all about.

This week, our examination of stay-at-home daughterhood (SAHD) continues with a look at the two-lecture set Strength and Dignity for Daughters. The two lectures are How to Be Your Father’s Arrow, Ambassador and Princess by Anna Sofia Botkin, and How I Learned to Help My Father by Elizabeth Botkin, but since they were each only twenty minutes long and the content was closely related, I’ll be critiquing them simultaneously. This will once again take two posts, the first for the central themes and the second for the assorted strangeness that could not be easily categorized.

Sleeping Beauty and the Five Questions, Part 2: Joseph, John and Guinevere (TBB)

The “TBB” in the name of this post means that it is part of The Big Box series. If you’re new to Scarlet Letters, read the introductory post to see what The Big Box is all about.

All right, readers – Hester’s finally finished banging her head against her desk. And I hope you’ve finished that cup of coffee, because you wouldn’t want to risk spraying hot beverage out your nose when you see what Vision Forum put on the cover of Sleeping Beauty and the Five Questions. Thankfully whoever designed the cover was kind enough to tell us the name of the painting they used, Edmund Blair Leighton’s The Accolade. Here’s the original.

Sleeping Beauty and the Five Questions, Part 1: Blurring the Lines (TBB)

The “TBB” in the name of this post means that it is part of The Big Box series. If you’re new to Scarlet Letters, read the introductory post to see what The Big Box is all about.

Imagine for a moment that you are trapped in an old, drafty and apparently uninhabited castle. Since you cannot get out, your only option is to continue downstairs, toward the dungeons and all sorts of other unpleasant places. You know from the start, in your gut, that something is wrong with the place: it makes your hair stand on end, and after a while dark, eerie figures begin to appear in distant doorways and then mysteriously vanish before you can investigate further. But you try to keep your spirits up, and hope against hope that maybe things will get better and you can find a way out. Soon, however, comes that inevitable turning point – the moment you realize that not only are things not going to get better, they are about to get much, much worse.

Defending the Fatherless (TBB)

Crossposted at Jeff Crippen and Barbara Roberts’ A Cry for Justice.

The “TBB” in the name of this post means that it is part of The Big Box series. If you’re new to Scarlet Letters, read the introductory post to see what The Big Box is all about.

Okay, readers, Hester is really back this time! After a long, long summer, I’ve finally opened my Big Box again – and pulled out Defending the Fatherless by Doug Phillips. Sounds so high-minded and noble, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, as we’ve come to expect, the problems begin almost immediately.