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Fundies are EVERYWHERE! A lot of my fundy relatives live in Melbourne. Look it up. Melbourne! Arts capital of Australia. Wonderful city. My parents live a super rich rural area. (They aren't super rich - they're farmers. The area around them is being taken over by rich Sydneysiders for country weekenders.) in the middle of this area ... massive Plymouth Brethren Church.

I think, too, if you read back far enough, the Maxwells are originally from Washington. Someone with more knowledge can fill in the details here. I think they moved to Kansas when Steve left engineering and started CC but I could be wrong.

The poor dog.

I grew up in a fairly large community of fundies in a large Australian city. And we weren't the only group,the Plymouth Bretheran were right there in the same couple of suburbs.

There are fundies everywhere. They're just more concentrated and/or visible in some places.

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I saw this post over on GOMI and immediately came here cos I just knew someone would've made a thread.

This woman is an out-and-out whackadoodle. Melanie's reaction was basically :pink-shock:. Kind of like, "Are you SERIOUS?" Probably because there hasn't been an announcement in three years, and of course last time she miscarried.

She has no bloody room in that house. The cells are cramped enough as is without another baby. It'll sleep in the closet for a year before being shunted sideways into a cell. And OMG, Erika's giggle and grin is just so bloody scary.

If she's due in January, she'd've conceived only last month, meaning she's doing a Jill Duggar Dillard and telling everyone really early. This is exactly what she did last time, even creating a whole post, before having to add "The Lord ended up taking this little life to be with Him much earlier than we would have chosen (11 weeks gestation)" at the top.

Also, like Loveday said, I hope she isn't one of those assholes who ditches a dog when a baby comes along.

*sigh*. She is. We all know she is totally that kind of asshole.

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I hate that she posts about the joy of scheduling babies and includes all the details of her baby schedule. She also admits she has never been able to successfully breast feed so they only formula feed . I can't help but wonder if her strict schedule plays a part in that. It saddens me to think that a new mom that reads her blog for advice would try her schedule and also be unable to breast feed because it really isn't conducive to nursing at all. ***I know some mothers cannot nurse but one would not know this following such a strict feeding schedule. Here's to hoping Erica goes into "grandparent mode" with this one!

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My first thought when I saw the title was "oh, dear God, no... that poor child".

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I hate Erica *smile*

Did anyone check out her babysitter/night out reward system on the blog? She and old Bobbo get a date night every single week and they pay literally pennies. The babysitters are also punished if the kids are in bed late. Someone in the comments asked if Karen and Melanie were able to refuse to babysit and she replied no.

Hate.

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Oh God no. Where the fuck is she going to put it? This baby will probably sleep in the bath when it isn't in use.

I thought she was done, the twins are about four now, aren't they? Poor baby. Another one to be obsessively scheduled from the minute they are born, stuffed into that little house (which needs organisation Erika, the parents room and the playroom are big rooms, and yet the kids are stuffed in the small room. Or the toys could go in the bedrooms, and the playroom can become a bedroom for the little girls, then Melanie and Karen can have the girls room to themselves.

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I'm trying to read up on Erica, was unfamiliar with her. I went to her FB page and started looking at pictures. She had a family Easter basket posted. I don't want to snark on families without a lot of money, Lord knows I don't have any myself but, they had 1 chocolate Easter bunny to share amongst 9 children and it looked like 1 package of peeps. So everyone gets 1 peep? I guess it's more than a Maxwell could ever hope for. I'm so sorry if this was rude. :whistle:

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Or the toys could go in the bedrooms, and the playroom can become a bedroom for the little girls, then Melanie and Karen can have the girls room to themselves.

Negatory. The two older girls can't be separated off from their younger sisters - after all, it is their job to watch them while mommy dearest is getting her beauty sleep. If this baby is a girl, I seriously fear for the sleeping arrangements for those kids as there is no more room at the moment for another person to sleep in that room! I picture some kind of 'In A Shoe-esque' Cosco shelf beds in their future.

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Oh no. *cringe*

I thought God had closed this womb for good. How old is her youngest again?

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Her point system is beyond cruel. Her kids literally have to get 5 stickers to get ONE measly jelly bean. She is just as bad as Jill Rodrigeuz, she just packages it better. Those poor, poor children.

Also: why are the twins always dressed alike? I don't think they're identical, but in every photo, they're dressed alike. I have a deep abhorrence for people who do this to young children.

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She and her husband get to eat Olive Garden while the kids have to eat protein bars.

Wish I could take her kids out to Olive Garden and force Erica and Bob to eat protein bars.

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She and her husband get to eat Olive Garden while the kids have to eat protein bars.

Wish I could take her kids out to Olive Garden and force Erica and Bob to eat protein bars.

Oh. Now I understand the one peep per person. :shifty-kitty:

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I don't think the one basket is a money issue but more of a philosophy this family has . She has a blog post about this exact issue if your curious. Large families on purpose is the blog I believe.

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I grew up in a fairly large community of fundies in a large Australian city. And we weren't the only group,the Plymouth Bretheran were right there in the same couple of suburbs.

There are fundies everywhere. They're just more concentrated and/or visible in some places.

A little OT, but I think this is a bit funny. I have fundie lite family in the Seattle suburbs. The only time I've been to that part of the country is to visit them, so the only people I know in Washington are fundie lite- fundies. I always have to consciously remind myself that Washington and Seattle are fairly liberal places when they come up in other conversations.

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Really? Pregnant again? Oh noooo!

Erika is one of cruelest and creepiest fundie mothers (right after Zsu and Jill R.). They all seem overwhelmed with their brood but keep on trying to convince everyone how happy and perfect such a lifestyle is.

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Her point system is beyond cruel. Her kids literally have to get 5 stickers to get ONE measly jelly bean. She is just as bad as Jill Rodrigeuz, she just packages it better. Those poor, poor children.

Also: why are the twins always dressed alike? I don't think they're identical, but in every photo, they're dressed alike. I have a deep abhorrence for people who do this to young children.

Who eats one jellybean at a time??????? That is child abuse, I at least give mine a handful, or hide them somewhere safe where the children will never know about them.

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Her point system is beyond cruel. Her kids literally have to get 5 stickers to get ONE measly jelly bean. She is just as bad as Jill Rodrigeuz, she just packages it better. Those poor, poor children.

Also: why are the twins always dressed alike? I don't think they're identical, but in every photo, they're dressed alike. I have a deep abhorrence for people who do this to young children.

They are supposedly identical, although I can typically see some differences between them too, just in pictures. One wears pink earrings and one wears white earrings (they have since they were tiny infants) because Erika can't tell them apart :|

I'm not sure it would be better in terms of bedrooms for the baby to be a boy. There are more girls, yes, but their bedroom is also bigger. There is literally not enough floor space to put another bed in the boys' room. Maybe it's time for Erika to move the kids upstairs so they can have the larger bedrooms and two bathrooms...*laughs hysterically*

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They are supposedly identical, although I can typically see some differences between them too, just in pictures. One wears pink earrings and one wears white earrings (they have since they were tiny infants) because Erika can't tell them apart :|

I'm not sure it would be better in terms of bedrooms for the baby to be a boy. There are more girls, yes, but their bedroom is also bigger. There is literally not enough floor space to put another bed in the boys' room. Maybe it's time for Erika to move the kids upstairs so they can have the larger bedrooms and two bathrooms...*laughs hysterically*

If she still can't tell them apart after four years, that is VERY telling. I used to babysit twin girls and they were identical and they loved to dress alike and be the same. Their parents did encourage them to develop their own interests, but they preferred the same until they were secondary school. The parents did have some trouble when the twins were babies identifying them, but it didn't take long to tell them apart. Even I, after time babysitting them, learned to tell them apart because while they looked the same on the outset, they were different people. I'm baffled and appalled by her being unable to do after all this time with them.

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If she still can't tell them apart after four years, that is VERY telling. I used to babysit twin girls and they were identical and they loved to dress alike and be the same. Their parents did encourage them to develop their own interests, but they preferred the same until they were secondary school. The parents did have some trouble when the twins were babies identifying them, but it didn't take long to tell them apart. Even I, after time babysitting them, learned to tell them apart because while they looked the same on the outset, they were different people. I'm baffled and appalled by her being unable to do after all this time with them.

I seriously hope the earrings are just a habit at this point, and she doesn't actually need them :?

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They're near Mount Vernon, Skagit Valley, Washington.

Side note: seeing as I know the Shupes live there, I looked up Washington on Wikipedia (not from America). It seems to be a pretty 'liberal' state as in Democrat. This being in contrast with the Maxwells, who live in Kansas, the Duggars, who live in Arkansas, and the Bateses, who live in Tennessee, which are all very Republican states. From what I can tell, Erika and Bob have always lived in Washington. Indeed, they live about half an hour away from Erika's parents. I know they might just choose to live in Washington, and they say they don't have the money to move right now, I just find it really interesting, because usually big fundie families live in deeply Republican states.

Remember that US states are not homogenous. The west coast in particular -- Washington, Oregon and California -- have the bulk of their populations in the western third of their land area and those areas are generally quite liberal, politically. But the eastern part of those same states is quite strongly conservative -- it just doesn't add up to large populations, so it often gets diminished or overridden in things that get voted on state by state.

Fortunately for me, there are liberal subcultures and enclaves even deep into the conservative zones, because that's where I most like to live, geographically speaking.

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I seriously hope the earrings are just a habit at this point, and she doesn't actually need them :?

I think the earrings might be a habit. The other girls all have pierced ears too.

I do kind of get the dressing alike thing- I imagine if I had twins I'd dress them alike occasionally. Sometimes even siblings who aren't the same age are dressed alike, mostly on family outings for identification purposes. That I can understand. My grandma did that with my mum and aunt sometimes, on outings, even though my mum is two years younger than my aunt. If you lost one, you could tell a policeman that they looked like the child you still have, just smaller or whatever.

Also, she doesn't always dress them *exactly* alike, but matching styles/coordinating outfits. Like one will be wearing a pink dress with flowers, and the other a pink dress with butterflies etc. On her "Twins: Our Life with them So Far" post, she does post some examples of non-matching clothes. She says that dressing them matching is "so much fun! *beam*" (the *beam* being her usage obviously) so that's what they're stuck with.

She hasn't updated the twins post, which was written when they were 17 months old. In the most recent family Christmas letter, in the paragraph she assigns to them (yeah, even there they're together) she says that they haven't yet grasped the unique twin concept. Which is what you were saying, dairyfreelife. But I've seen articles about mums with twins/multiples, who can tell the multiples apart even when they're, like, 5 months old. You know the kind of thing, Twin A is laid-back whereas Twin B is more feisty etc etc. But Erika has mentioned nothing like this.

When Erika gives birth (providing nothing happens) she'll be 44, only a few months older than Michelle Duggar was when she had Josie. We all know what happened with that one. OK, Michelle had had twice the number of babies by that point, but the age thing remains. In her original post for the baby she conceived three years ago, Erika says that she's done research on older mothers and the upshot is basically that doctors are liars when they say it's dangerous for a 40+ year old woman to get pregnant, that they do just as well etc etc. The ignorance, it burns. Yes pre-eclampsia can happen at any age, but there IS an increased risk with age.

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Erika is a terrible mother. Some fundies you can at least concede some good parts. Zsu takes good care of her babies, etc. But this lady is cold. From her newborns to her teenagers, she treats them all like crap. I can't imagine her adult kids wanting anything to do with her. I hope she ends up totally alone.

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Washingtonian here!

Came out of lurking to mention that Mount Vernon is actually in the Western half of the state, and in fact sits on I-5 only about an hour and a half north of Seattle. It is bizarre to hear about fundies in this part of the state, they're pretty few and far between. Although there's a BBQ joint in my hometown owned by Apostolics, so go figure!

I will say that the Skagit Valley is pretty much all farmland, so that could definitely play a part in it having a more conservative bent. Part of why the Shupes are so fascinating for me is because we don't have many ultra-fundamentalists around here. Also, I believe they attended Northwest University, which is Assemblies of God, and now they seemed to be pretty Reformed in theology, which is a pretty big switch.

Actually, I was just up in that area for a tulip festival recently and I was definitely keeping my eyes peeled for Shupes!

And back to lurking...

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I would not be surprised if this woman has her in womb baby scheduled. 4 kicks at 4.25pm etc.

*SMILE*

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Cold - that is the word. She looks like hard plastic, every hair pasted in place, chiclet teeth gleaming.

And I'm too far to rescue the dog. Dang. *sob*

I remember on one of her videos about how one of the older girls is teaching the pre-K's, the older girl - maybe 12 - hisses at one of the children "shut up." She'd probably been tending the brood all morning while Plasterika did her makeup and visited with God and drank her water to keep her skin so youthful... *gag*

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