Gretchen teaches us all how to use Facebook!

[flojo]

http://gretchenlouise.com/

I don't think I have ever seen such a dip in quality in a blogger than in YLCF Gretchen trying to be a social media guru. Not that she was incredible before...

[formergothardite]

That has to be up there with the top stupidest blog posts ever.

[mangoshake]

And teaching us all how to use twitter. :roll:

She is probably so bored with her home life as a subservient 'helpmeet' to her husband that blogging is her only way to obtain some semblance of sanity.

Didnt she have a job working for some senator or representative before getting married and plopping out babies? I'll bet she has realized how insipidous her life has become, consumed in raising toddlers and doing domestic work (like a good christian wife should) that maintaining her online presence in being able to communicate with real adults gives her some needed RELIEF.

I'd love to know how she managed to convince her husband to let her go across the country....ALONE...AS A WOMAN...CHRISTIAN 'HELPMEET' AT THAT....to a blogging conference! A couple years back he adamantly said NO, with no reason or explanation and she agreed lovingly and supportively.

Did she happen to grow a set of gonads and demand that she has a right to some personal time away from catering to him and their kids?

[Sola]

Hmm, I wonder if she can teach my how to use my keyboard. What with her being so up there with her book learning and all.

[bea]

Tell me MORE, Gretchen! With your vast amounts of business experience, SURELY you can teach me something.

[flojo]

Tell me MORE, Gretchen! With your vast amounts of business experience, SURELY you can teach me something.

I will be forever greatful that I now know the magic of "hit 'like' if"

[LucySnowe]

Feed my Facebook page? Er, no. I tried that Herman German Friendship Cake and I lasted all of one cycle before deciding I didn't need anything more in my life that would make me feel guilty if I didn't feed it regularly (my feline headship fulfils that role very nicely). Admittedly it made excellent cake and I may well do it again sometime.

And oh my ears and whiskers, can we have any more evidence that this blogging/social media thing among Christian women has to be pitched as fully integrating into their Wife And Mommy identity? Gretchen quotes Courtney of Women Living Well on Allume.com: “At first, Facebook was like a baby. I fed it every 2-3 hours! …Here’s my truth. My Facebook page is growing rapidly and it’s like a toddler. I feed it about every 4 hours, 6 days a week.â€

In fact, a public page on a social media website is NOT like a toddler. I am not a mother and I never will be YET EVEN I CAN TELL THE DIFFERENCE.

[Guest Anonymous]

Feed my Facebook page? Er, no. I tried that Herman German Friendship Cake and I lasted all of one cycle before deciding I didn't need anything more in my life that would make me feel guilty if I didn't feed it regularly (my feline headship fulfils that role very nicely). Admittedly it made excellent cake and I may well do it again sometime.

And oh my ears and whiskers, can we have any more evidence that this blogging/social media thing among Christian women has to be pitched as fully integrating into their Wife And Mommy identity? Gretchen quotes Courtney of Women Living Well on Allume.com: “At first, Facebook was like a baby. I fed it every 2-3 hours! …Here’s my truth. My Facebook page is growing rapidly and it’s like a toddler. I feed it about every 4 hours, 6 days a week.â€

In fact, a public page on a social media website is NOT like a toddler. I am not a mother and I never will be YET EVEN I CAN TELL THE DIFFERENCE.

Does God feed toddlers on the seventh day, then? :D

[Deleted07]

I need to learn how to dress myself, feed myself and use the bathroom, I wonder if she can help :roll:

[mangoshake]

Hey all, don't know if this has been brought up (Freejinger seems to be on top of these things) but I'm, unfortunately still tuned into Gretchen's writings and often come to this forum to see if anyone else has any speculations about the going ons at the No Longer Pink House but Gretchen Louise. That and....I'm suffering from work boredom being my clients are headed on holiday and leaving me with not much to do but surf, lol.

Has anyone read her post a while back on Gretchen's blog about some big opportunity (job, book deal, she doesn't say) she had...but decided to turn down?

http://gretchenlouiseDOTcom/2012/05/opportunity/

She belittles said "opportunity" in favor of remaining in her position as an at-home mom and hubby's helpmeet....because she is raising "generations" and anything that would hinder her position as a mom and wife is a no-no.

I wish she elaborated on what this opportunity was and WHY she would turn it down? Well...the 'why' part should be explanatory being she self-glorifies her submissive position as a housewife. However the fact that she attended a blogging conference is telling that she MUST still crave some other interests outside her little fundie bubble out in the sticks.

She is a smart girl, she must want to put her talents to use. Didn't she work for some senator or house of representatives before she married? Drove her own car, held a good job....

I am speculating whether she really did turn it down in favor of her current position, or if hubby shut down the opportunity? Or if this is an attempt at highlighting and self-glorifying her preference to remain a fundie SAHM instead of working in the big bad evil world? Come on!!!

[bea]

I've kind of stopped being interested in Gretchen. While the YLCF were my gateway fundies, the departure of anyone with a shred of writing talent from the blog, and Gretchen's increasingly pathetic attempts to position herself as some kind of social media guru have left me cold.

Whatever opportunity it was that came knocking, it wasn't compatible with Gretchen's chosen lifestyle - which leaves very little time for anything other than her primary duties of wife, mom, homemaker. I do wonder what it was, but she's really struggling, it sounds like. Her husband cannot earn all that much money, they have three little kids, and it sounds like now that her sister has departed, Gretchen doesn't have all that much help.

Frankly, I think this whole "rebranding" and pathetic attempts to pretend she's a social media guru are depressing. For someone who talks a lot about the blessings of being "only" a wife and mother, Gretchen seems desperate to present herself as anything OTHER than "only" a wife and mother. I think she's bright and talented and looking at the rest of her life being filled with nothing other than cooking and cleaning and wiping butts and taking care of kids and looking after the house and doing laundry and maybe thinking that she'd like to do something ELSE, too. But the problem is that with three little kids and a husband who's a full-time farmer, Gretchen's pretty much made her bed and has to lie in it. This is what she chose - she doesn't have the extra time to be a social media guru or consultant without hiring childcare or getting her sister to come live-in again.

Whatever options come Gretchen's way, she's going to have to turn most of them down, simply because of the number of hours in the day. Someone who can't manage to keep the content on YLCF from descending to the insipid pap currently being written isn't capable of taking on major projects, from a professional perspective.

[silvia]

That "opportunity" post looks to be another one of those annoying ones where Gretchen dances around the topic instead of laying out honestly what's really going on with her. I'm not sure that she's turned down a specific job opportunity, but it does seem as though she's been thinking about all the opportunities she left behind in order to marry, become a SAHW, and have three kids in quick succession so early in life. That's all just me reading between the lines, though--it's not like she says any of this outright. (It probably wouldn't speak well of her "submissiveness" and "femininity" if she did. Plus, Merritt might cut off her internet access, lol.)

All the same, I'd like to believe there's still hope for Gretchen to break out of the ideological box and take full advantage of her many talents. She is quite bright and driven, just like former best friend Natalie, and could really offer a lot to the world if she chose to. And I really think she could find a way to do it without shortchanging the kids. Unfortunately, she would probably view anything less than being home with them all the time as shortchanging them.

[erunerune]

I think I've said this before, but:

Dammit fundies, *just say what you mean already*. No dressing up your reality in schlocky Voskamp-y airy-fairyness. If you want to talk about your life on a publicly-accessible blog, then the least you can do is stop playing coy with me and give a few concrete details! I mean, it wouldn't kill you, srsly. The vagueness drives me nuts, and forces me to use my limited mental energy thinking up what could possibly have been the catalyst for whatever most-recent flowery angst you are currently experiencing that I feel compelled to read about. And I'm going to read about it, aren't I? But that's clearly my problem. Plus, whatever I imagine is likely going to be at least four times worse/juicier/naughtier than what is actually going on , so there's that.

[bea]

I hadn't even thought to be naughty.

Perhaps Gretchen was invited to write copy for Toys in Babeland or something.

[wild little fox]

With the "Opportunity" post, I felt she was disappointed, perhaps even depressed, all the while trying to convince herself that she is doing the right thing.

[mangoshake]

I figured that....or to be an editor of some website similar to Natalie's gig at Titus 2. Either way....it would be some sort of escape from her daily duty of chasing kids and keeping house (which she has insinuated repeatedly that it's not all roses.) as well as make some clearly much-needed income to support herself and three kids.

Her brother and sister seem to be well....I noticed that they had more ambition beyond being SAHM (both went to college)...remember Gretchen touted on YLCF since age 16 that her life goal was to be barefoot and pregnant working in the kitchen....(yes those exact words.) Not to knock anyone's choices....but really have more of an open mind.

I wouldn't be surprised if she had a few regrets about her choices or felt maybe she should have pursued a career. Which I think she should have. Her hubs was almost killed during a welding accident from what I remember, wonder why it wasn't a wake up call for her to get a job or find something to support herself and her kids in the event of something so tragic happening?

Meh....whatever...

[bea]

Meh....whatever...

You've just summed up most of my current feelings about Gretchen. Well done.

[ILoveJellybeans]

Do we really need a post on how to use Facebook?

The only real requirements are:

1. If you wouldnt post it about yourself, or would die of embarassment if your parents posted it about you, dont post it about your child.

2. Nobody wants to see or hear anything that came out of your body, unless it is a baby that is fully out, clothed and cleaned up. Im talking to you, Facebook friend who talked about the satisfying shit they just had.

3. If you wouldnt talk about it in public, dont put it as your status.

4. Chain letter things or anything that ends with "If you think cancer/child abuse/anything else most of the population are against should be stopped, copy and paste this to your status" are annoying and shouldnt be posted.

5. Vague posts are annoying, and everyone knows who the unnamed person in your status that is annoying you is. Also, if youre going to post about how sad you are and someone asks what is wrong, dont tell them you dont want to talk about it, as clearly you do, or you wouldnt have posted it.

[Anise]

"Post frequently"? Oh, this explains so much about the conservatives in my feed.

[silvia]

Gretchen's airy-fairicizing has me thinking yet again about how difficult it must be to mature from a know-it-all fundamentalist teenager into a thoughtful, balanced adult. You've put all these provocative declarations out there about contentious issues, declarations you might feel like you have to stand behind lest you look like a fool on a very public stage for saying, essentially, "Ignore all the crazy stuff I wrote back then." So you're reduced to writing slantwise about the very real complexities of life--a life you once imagined you could tackle in paint-by-number fashion--and the rest of the world can only guess about the internal struggles you're alluding to in your posts.

I might suggest Gretchen check out the recent writings of Bethany Patchin: bethanypatchin.blogspot.com. Now there's a former teenage ideologue who has grown into a compassionate, open-minded woman and nuanced thinker yet maintained her sense of spiritual awe.