Now Scheduling for Summer: Erika Shupe (pt. 7)

[lauraloralara]

Heidi's blog is pretty bare compared to Erika's, so it's harder to figure out what's going on with her. But two things I noticed in the "day in the life of our homeschool" post: Heidi DOESN'T have a prayer/bible study slot on her schedule (they do have "family read aloud" which might be bible study), but if I remember right these categories were on Erika's schedules. Also, Heidi DOES have a "blanket time" slot for her youngest (this was a fall 2014 schedule, so 2-year-old Tessa then would be turning 4 this year). Just a couple observations. Her house definitely is big in a McMansion way. There are many, many homes like this here in Metro Atlanta. Not sure of the COL or housing market in Colorado, but houses like that around here, depending on where you are, go for about $300k-$500k.

Edit: I forgot, she definitely does have some structured prayer time with the kids as she mentions in that same post. I'm pretty sure they're not fundie and I'm actually leaning toward them even being not fundie-light. They seem to me like a lot of the suburban Christian families you find on Pinterest and elsewhere in the blogosphere (and in real life, obviously). The Babywise and blanket training stuff bothers me, though, even though I'm not 100% sure it is related to their religious leanings. But again, Heidi's blog is pretty bare, so it's harder to know what's going on with her.

[Desertrose]

I started down that rabbit hole this morning.  It appears that she does more activities with her kids than Erika, it's hard to gauge if she's just as fundie. Erika posted a comment on her sisters blog that she woud see her in June. I wonder if the whole family is going or if it's just Erika.

[Granwych]

On ‎5‎/‎1‎/‎2016 at 10:13 PM, iweartanktops said:

We never used cry it out. I don't remember when her overnight feeding stopped. 

I have worked with many pediatricians, and I have not met one who had a problem with babies going 6 hours overnight without feeding, as long as their weight was stable and increasing, and they didn't have other health issues.

If the baby is satiated and gaining weight, scheduling feeding is just fine.

Tracy Hogg differentiates between a baby being hungry and just "snacking," like taking 1 or 2 oz every so often.  When I'm  with Wychling's little guy, I keep an eye on the time between his feeds--usually they're about 3 hours in between.  He's 2 months old now, and I've seen growth spurts with more milk taken, less sleep in the daytime, and longer snoozes at night.  When he's really vocalizing, I guess, usually correctly, that he's hungry.  I don't think I could make him wait to a scheduled feeding.  He's growing, for sure.

[mango_fandango]

23 hours ago, iweartanktops said:

 

Wow, this all sounds extremely fucked up! Apparently with this particular baby, the parents (and myself) only followed BW loosely. We never let her cry for anything. Perhaps by 5 or 6 months, if she whined a bit during a nap, we let her get herself back to sleep rather than running to her side immediately, but if it took longer than a minute or two, we got her. I see nothing wrong with that. If an infant is crying, they have a need to be met. Allowing them to basically beg (through crying) for help until it's "time" to eat, or they fall asleep, is cruel. 

Thanks for the mature discussion. I cringed when I posted because I didn't want to start a mommy war.

Sounds quite normal. Whining/fussing a bit when going to sleep/whilst sleeping is totally normal, full on crying should probably be checked up on. You sound like you did the right thing!

[alexandracabot]

On 5/1/2016 at 8:12 AM, lauraloralara said:

Edit: I forgot, she definitely does have some structured prayer time with the kids as she mentions in that same post. I'm pretty sure they're not fundie and I'm actually leaning toward them even being not fundie-light. They seem to me like a lot of the suburban Christian families you find on Pinterest and elsewhere in the blogosphere (and in real life, obviously). The Babywise and blanket training stuff bothers me, though, even though I'm not 100% sure it is related to their religious leanings. But again, Heidi's blog is pretty bare, so it's harder to know what's going on with her.

How do you define fundie/fundie-light? To me, homeschooling + structured daily prayer time + Babywise and blanket training is not just average, suburban Christian. Any one of those things is out of the norm for non-fundamentalist Christians; all three seems to be pretty strongly indicative of being fundie-light.

[December]

4 minutes ago, alexandracabot said:

How do you define fundie/fundie-light? To me, homeschooling + structured daily prayer time + Babywise and blanket training is not just average, suburban Christian. Any one of those things is out of the norm for non-fundamentalist Christians; all three seems to be pretty strongly indicative of being fundie-light.

I agree... outside of like a bedtime prayer like "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" or Sunday school I've never seen structured prayer time in a non-fundie/fundie lite family.

And in the scheduling post there's a photo mentioning Character First.

[mango_fandango]

The exact definition of fundie/fundie-lite is often a source of contention on FJ. One of the big issues would be skirt-wearing. I mean, Alyssa Webster wears pants, but she's very young still and only has one child (so far) so we'd need to wait another five-ten years to see what she does. 

Personally, I'd classify the Shupes, Maxwells, Duggars, Bateseseses and Andersons as firmly fundie, and the Schweens as more fundie lite. Heidi doesn't update the blog much so we have no real indication of fundieness. She doesn't bang on about Jeebus and God as much as Erika does. 

[Shiny]

20 hours ago, December said:

I agree... outside of like a bedtime prayer like "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" or Sunday school I've never seen structured prayer time in a non-fundie/fundie lite family.

And in the scheduling post there's a photo mentioning Character First.

Most of the homeschooling families I know (we homeschool) are Christian, and they all do devotion time. I'm not Christian, but I assume devotion time is the same as prayer time.  I'm not sure I'd classify them all as fundie-lite, though they seem to follow the same lifestyle: lots of kids, religious curriculum, media limited to christian stuff. 

 

 

[THERetroGamerNY]

I'm sure this varies, but "devotion time" for us was reading some overly-moralistic story from something, and discussing it. Was a sort of bible study lite.

[Coy Koi]

1 hour ago, Shiny said:

Most of the homeschooling families I know (we homeschool) are Christian, and they all do devotion time. I'm not Christian, but I assume devotion time is the same as prayer time.  I'm not sure I'd classify them all as fundie-lite, though they seem to follow the same lifestyle: lots of kids, religious curriculum, media limited to christian stuff. 

 

 

Why don't you consider them fundy lite? Just curious. I have definitely never known anyone that would be called hardcore fundy, but I've known a few that might be fundy lite, but I'm never quite sure. One was a family I babysat for. For some odd reason, despite not even knowing me previously, they let me babysit for their 4-month-old and 3-year-old at age 11. They had 2 kids, then later 3, and I happen to know they weren't opposed to birth control (sometimes babysitters see things lol). The mom stayed at home and the dad worked. The dad seemed plenty nice and all but he was definitely the head of the household. I remember the mom, when she was pregnant with the third child, telling me that the dad wanted a certain name for the baby but she really disliked it. The baby ended up with that name. I was very young when I knew these people but I wonder what I would have seen if I had known them when I was older.

Then there is my aunt. She's estranged from most of my family now, by her choice. She's always been a bit odd, and I think she would have been diagnosed with something (I wouldn't venture to guess what) if she'd been born later. She got married at about 40 to a man her age who was still a virgin (I can't remember why I even know that lol) and quickly had 3 kids, then a miscarriage, then nothing. I'm pretty sure they were opposed to using birth control. When I was about 6 and long before my aunt got married, she was alone with me and made me formally ask Jesus into my heart (I was being raised with religion anyway, baptism and Catholic school and all that...but obviously that wouldn't save me from going to hell). She also homeschooled her kids and didn't believe dinosaurs ever existed (this was before the new fun theory that dinosaurs DID exist, but they were on Noah's Ark and such). But my aunt always worked part time and her husband died a few year ago. Now the teenage children attend public school and have some serious issues but are far more "worldly" than one would expect. The 17-year-old has a tattoo, for God's sake. I would kick my underage daughter's ass if she got a tattoo! (I'm not against tattoos, I have one, but they're illegal here for minors, so anyone tattooing a minor is not following regulations.) I don't know what to make of these people.

Sorry for the way too much rambling...

[Shiny]

@Coy Koi I don't know, maybe I would call them fundie-lite. I would have a few years ago, but now it seems that everyone I meet is pretty fundie or evangelical. There seem to be few to no moderate Christians in the groups I associate with. 

[mango_fandango]

Erika's taken all the kids to a homeschool conference. Karen and Melanie took part in the choral performance. Can't see them in the group photo, although maybe they're part of the group of violinists at the front. 

2 minutes ago, mango_fandango said:

Erika's taken all the kids to a homeschool conference. Karen and Melanie took part in the choral performance. Can't see them in the group photo, although maybe they're part of the group of violinists at the front. 

 

They also got Chinese on the way home. Looks like a decent sized meal for once. 

Also, I can't see any evidence of the youngest four. Either they were there and just not in any photos, or Erika's mom had them. Hmm.

[ViolaSebastian]

It's interesting to me that both Erika and Bob have the full size plate portions of Chinese food, whereas the children, regardless of age and size, have just the bowls. If this was anyone else, it wouldn't be noteworthy, but this is Erika...

[princessmahina]

I'm surprised at how much shoulder/back Anna-Marie is showing in the picture of the kids eating lunch. I thought that was considered immodest? I know we've seen Karen in thick-strapped tank tops, but AM's is almost a halter. 

[Shiny]

25 minutes ago, ViolaSebastian said:

It's interesting to me that both Erika and Bob have the full size plate portions of Chinese food, whereas the children, regardless of age and size, have just the bowls. If this was anyone else, it wouldn't be noteworthy, but this is Erika...

Yeah I noticed that. Like you said, it's Erika so it feel noteworthy. I just assume the older girls want things that a different than their little siblings, but who knows. 

 

Also, notice Bob. All the kids look shiny and perfect and are looking right into the camera. And then there is Bob. 

[mango_fandango]

58 minutes ago, Shiny said:

Yeah I noticed that. Like you said, it's Erika so it feel noteworthy. I just assume the older girls want things that a different than their little siblings, but who knows. 

 

Also, notice Bob. All the kids look shiny and perfect and are looking right into the camera. And then there is Bob. 

It's probably more than they get at home.

Bob always looks a bit off in photos. He often has quite a pained look on his face. Like this one. Although maybe he just doesn't photograph well/like being in them/do well in posed photos. There are some candids of him where he looks quite happy.

 

[JillyO]

4 hours ago, ViolaSebastian said:

It's interesting to me that both Erika and Bob have the full size plate portions of Chinese food, whereas the children, regardless of age and size, have just the bowls. If this was anyone else, it wouldn't be noteworthy, but this is Erika...

Agreed. I love Panda Express and eat there way more than I care to admit (when I'm in the States, anyway) and I've occasionally gotten just a bowl when I wasn't very hungry. But this being the Shupes, it is interesting that Bob and Erika got the plate with two entrees and their (almost) grown daughters got the same thing as their seven year-old brother.

[Apricot]

10 hours ago, ViolaSebastian said:

It's interesting to me that both Erika and Bob have the full size plate portions of Chinese food, whereas the children, regardless of age and size, have just the bowls. If this was anyone else, it wouldn't be noteworthy, but this is Erika...

Im amazed by how full the plate that I assume to be Erika's is.  I'd imagined she was just one of those people who didn't really eat a lot after reading her blog but that plate is huge!

[Eternalbluepearl]

Bob rarely looks happy in photos. It's sort of cringe-worthy to me. Erika always has the wide-as-possible smile and the crazy eyes like this. is. so. much. fun. and Bob is almost always a sharp contrast to that. It makes for an awkward-looking couple. I always wonder what Bob Shupe is thinking...I wonder indeed. 

[19 cats and counting]

Bob comes across as one of those anti-government conspiracy theorists who in another life would be a prepper or would have been one occupying the wildlife refuge.  

I think Erika homeschooling the kids plays into the anti-government part of Bob (I've heard them refer to public schools as 'government schools') but I'm not sure if he believes the Jesus part.   I'm not sure if he's happy in the marriage, but you can tell that homeschooling is the bone Erika threw him.

[molecule]

Where are these pictures of Chinese food? I looked on her blog and her blog facebook page and didn't see them. It's pathetic how much it is bugging me that I can't look at pictures of someone else's food. 

[refugee]

11 hours ago, ViolaSebastian said:

It's interesting to me that both Erika and Bob have the full size plate portions of Chinese food, whereas the children, regardless of age and size, have just the bowls. If this was anyone else, it wouldn't be noteworthy, but this is Erika...

Huh. If it were our family, some of the kids (depending on where they were in the growth spurt cycle) would have four times as much food as spouse and myself, while others would have a plate with a few spoonfuls of food, and that would be all they wanted. Although I must say, when we went to buffet restaurants when they were younger, they usually went all out because of being able to choose *exactly* what they wanted, rather than what was for dinner. (All the peas you can eat in one sitting! And baby carrots with ranch! And an ice cream machine! And sometimes even macaroni and cheese!)

[nelliebelle1197]

On 5/2/2016 at 7:14 PM, mango_fandango said:

The exact definition of fundie/fundie-lite is often a source of contention on FJ. One of the big issues would be skirt-wearing. I mean, Alyssa Webster wears pants, but she's very young still and only has one child (so far) so we'd need to wait another five-ten years to see what she does. 

Personally, I'd classify the Shupes, Maxwells, Duggars, Bateseseses and Andersons as firmly fundie, and the Schweens as more fundie lite. Heidi doesn't update the blog much so we have no real indication of fundieness. She doesn't bang on about Jeebus and God as much as Erika does. 

Skirts only is not really a good marker of fundie-ism in my opinion. Some fundies are not skirts only. Some wear head coverings, some ban makeup and jeans for men.

I define it as people who literally interpret the Bible and want to use that literal interpretation as the only truth. Christian fundies come in all stripes, but the unifying factor is biblical inerrancy.

[FundamentallyShocked]

5 minutes ago, nelliebelle1197 said:

I define it as people who literally interpret the Bible and want to use that literal interpretation as the only truth. Christian fundies come in all stripes, but the unifying factor is biblical inerrancy.

I believe in an inerrant Bible, but I'm not fundie, for sure! Pants-wearing, college professor, college educated children, kids on fb and with cell phones, homeschoolers. Yikes, maybe I am fundie, but an odd kind of fundie. LOL

[19 cats and counting]

55 minutes ago, molecule said:

Where are these pictures of Chinese food? I looked on her blog and her blog facebook page and didn't see them. It's pathetic how much it is bugging me that I can't look at pictures of someone else's food. 

Stay away from social media (particularly Instagram).  It seems every other post is someone's dinner.

(I don't care what you ate for dinner.  I hate when people share pictures of it).