Jump to content
IGNORED

Anna, Josh, and the M-Kids, Part 10: Genes and Bedsheets


choralcrusader8613

Recommended Posts

5 minutes ago, Hmmm_idolatry said:

This is exactly how I felt about Counting On.  I never watched the original show, but based on recaps I've read of the original, CO is the exact same thing.  The only difference seems to be in the amount of time they devote to JB and Michelle and the little kids.  

If TLC was smart, they'd bring them all back and turn it into some sort of family rehab or family bootcamp where they all get together and yell and fight with each other about the damage Josh has done (for humane purposes, they should take out anybody who is under 14).  I'd tune into that on the regular.  CO is the most boring thing I've ever seen.  I feel like I'm killing brain cells when I watch that show.  It is hard for me to understand the appeal.  The formula of court, engaged, marry, baby is already stale and uninteresting.  It's been done four or five times already.  They need to step it up and tackle the molestation issue, or even better, show someone realizing their view of Christianity is bullshit and decides to leave the fold.  I'd totally watch that.  

I haven't watched either, just read recaps.   

I would totally watch them hashing out the Joshgates or one of them calling BS on their beliefs but no way is JB going to abide that.    And I suspect that when the 19K&C was cancelled in the wake of Joshgate 1.0, I bet JB was in a major panic about what was going to happen to that income stream.   Personally I think TLC should have totally washed their hands of them all, but CO seems to have been the compromise to keep the show going in some form.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 613
  • Created
  • Last Reply
16 minutes ago, nokidsmom said:

Personally I think TLC should have totally washed their hands of them all, but CO seems to have been the compromise to keep the show going in some form.  

I agree completely.  TLC should have just truly cancelled the show altogether.  CO cannot possibly be making them much money; I doubt the ratings are enough to justify the expense.  

I think it's hilarious that UP signed the Bates family.  Now, there really isn't anywhere for JBoob to go.  UP doesn't need another family.  Other networks might be hesitant to get involved with this family.  Bravo is certainly out of the picture due to the Duggars' ridiculous beliefs.  USA has started to do feature more scripted shows.  Oprah won't have them on her channel.  There really aren't any channels they can turn to.  They don't really fit on Discovery.  Hallmark might be a good fit, but they seem to focus on movies.  Now they're in a bind, and I'm sure TLC will drop them the minute something more profitable comes along.  

 Josh and Anna in rehab with legitimate counselors would be profitable.  I suppose that if they really needed the money, JB would consider it.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, nokidsmom said:

I haven't watched either, just read recaps.   

I would totally watch them hashing out the Joshgates or one of them calling BS on their beliefs but no way is JB going to abide that.    And I suspect that when the 19K&C was cancelled in the wake of Joshgate 1.0, I bet JB was in a major panic about what was going to happen to that income stream.   Personally I think TLC should have totally washed their hands of them all, but CO seems to have been the compromise to keep the show going in some form.  

They lost something like 19 million dollars having to reprogram after the scandal hit, so maybe they're trying to recoup their losses through CO.

Producers definitely aren't making any effort to keep it compelling, fresh or relevant. CO doesn't have any clear direction. The kidults also don't have any clear direction. It's like watching paint dry, but with the possibility of an explosion at the end. That we will read about here because they won't show it on the show. 

9 minutes ago, Hmmm_idolatry said:

Now they're in a bind, and I'm sure TLC will drop them the minute something more profitable comes along.  

I hope!!

9 minutes ago, Hmmm_idolatry said:

 Josh and Anna in rehab with legitimate counselors would be profitable.  I suppose that if they really needed the money, JB would consider it.  

Only Bill Gothard would be approved. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had another thought about Josh's weight. It was actually a plot line on 19K&C that he needed to lose weight. That's way more public body shaming than his sisters ever got. Maybe he was trying to stay slimmer while he was on TV, and now he's enjoying getting to eat what he wants. Not that I think he's really happy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Someone needs to convince fundies that those long denim skirts are devil wear or something.

I really, really dislike them.  I prefer those crazy prairie dresses over the long denim skirts.

And yeah, maybe I'm a bitter short legged woman.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On the topic of slightly odd/unusual ancestors, my Great Grandmother was quite the character. She was an almost 6' tall Norwegian, with red hair, iron grey eyes and something of a reputation for being a witch. Anyway, Great Grandmother was enraged when she discovered that one her adult sons was being served liquor at a bar in a small town hotel. She grabbed her axe, saddled up and headed for the hotel bar. According to local accounts, she marched into the bar and, without a saying a word, smashed all the liquor bottles and the bar itself with her axe. The customers mostly ran for it, but the barman and a few hardcore drinkers took shelter under a table. When Great Grandmother was done trashing the bar, she embedded the axe in the bartop, pulled the barman out from under his table, gave him a good shake, and told him that his establishment was never again to serve a member of her family, and if it did the bar and the entire hotel "would burn". She then got back on her horse and returned to the farm.

The lady with the axe must have been pretty scary, because approximately fifty years after this incident, my mother went to the bar with some of her friends and tried to order. The barman (not the same one) asked her if she was "one of those __insert last name here's_". She replied that she was, and he told her to get out and said that they didn't serve "her kind". She was mortified.

A couple of years ago the hotel burned down. Locals say it was because a cousin of mine (and descendant of the axe wielding Great Grandmother) had been served a beer there. Opinion is divided as to whether the cousin is responsible, or if it was the bar's fault for not checking to see if he was "one of those __insert last name here's_". Anyway, the insurance paid out, but nobody has been motivated to rebuild, leaving the town an unwilling dry zone.  I'm going with the more mundane electrical fault as a reason for the fire, but I can't help but think that my Great Grandmother would approve.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just think Josh has a slower metabolism. He consistently gained more weight each year on the show. He was probably slimmer after the Jesus rehab/work camp because he had to eat what he was served and do manual labor all day. But now that he's back to his normal routine he will continue to gain. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Speaking from the perspective of my BA and MSc in Psychology, along with my volunteer and vocational experience in the field, I think Josh's food issues are multifaceted.

1) I don't think he has ever been exposed to a balanced diet. I know they had that trainer working with them, but that was a restrictive diet. So he has only been exposed to the Duggar way of processed crap OR a restrictive diet. Has he ever been exposed to a healthy wholefoods diet? I seriously doubt it.

2) Few pleasures are permissible in the Fundie world. They can't read most books, watch most films, drink alcohol, or even go dancing. At least the girls have makeup and clothing (I personally love both!). Yet all the guys really have are sex and food. It's very obvious that JB loves junk food, and he has said as much. Now that Josh can't access the sex he wants, he may be turning to his only other pleasure.

3) If you are depressed you may turn to food, as junk food lights up the brain’s pleasure receptors like crazy.

4) We know from research that adults who experience food scarcity in childhood are more likely to be heavy as adults. This is because their body basically clings onto calories, since it doesn’t know when the next famine is coming. It's also because children who have had restrictive diets in childhood are more likely to have issues with bingeing. However, these issues are not truly psychological; they are grounded in the very real biology of the scarcity they experienced. Their brain doesn't truly understand that the famine is over. 

5) We know from epigenetics that stress can turn on "bad" genes. So, if insulin resistance or hypothyroidism or high cortisol runs in their families, stress will turn it on. All of these will pack on the pounds. Most doctors are clueless about the more subtle variants of these problems, so diagnosis can be problematic. Also, the Duggars don't seek much medical care anyway.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, VeganCupcake said:

I just think Josh has a slower metabolism. He consistently gained more weight each year on the show. He was probably slimmer after the Jesus rehab/work camp because he had to eat what he was served and do manual labor all day. But now that he's back to his normal routine he will continue to gain. 

From what has been shown on TV, Josh's household has a drastically different diet than his married sisters' (and, in that there is more available quantity-wise, it also differs from how he was raised). Josh was shown eating copious amounts of processed food, sweets, sausage, bacon, gravy, store-bought biscuits, and so on. I'm sure they played it up for the show, but he certainly seemed to be enjoying himself. The married sisters, on the other hand, have been shown baking sweet potatoes, making fruit and greens smoothies, and generally attempting to do  more "whole" foods, rather than the store-bought kind of stuff on which they were raised. We hate on their recipes and techniques, but it's undeniable that they try to surround themselves with food that isn't as processed as how they grew up.

Personally, I had a lot of siblings and remember a lot of nights than, even though my mom cooked a big meal, I didn't get all I wanted to or had to sneak. I still love to eat for reasons that aren't always to do with hunger, and you can tell how I was raised vs. how my husband was and how our relationships with food differ, but I keep tons of HEALTHY (and vegan) stuff around so that I don't feel that guilty even if I do binge. I maintain a healthy weight, blood pressure, and so on, even eating more calories than many people I know.  Josh needs healthier options, to start with. NOTHING I have seen him put in his body is something his body actually needs in order to function well. 

If I ate any of the stuff that Josh has been shown to eat, I would be a MESS hormonally, weight-wise, stamina-wise, digestion-wise, and so on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Million Children For Jesus said:

My family is so boring. I had an aunt sneak off the farm and go to a bar in Chicago once. She's a legend. That was in 1925. Nothing has happened since.

Haha. I once asked my mom, "Didn't you EVER get into trouble as a teenager?" and after some thought, she said she did get in trouble a few times for leaving crumbs on the counter. I think I've mentioned that here before. I then later laughed at her about that story and she insisted that it was a pretty big deal, and she got yanked out of bed in the middle of the night to clean it up! This was the same conversation when we were talking about "teenage rebellion" and trying to figure out if she'd ever actually done anything rebellious, and she seriously asked me what rebellion even meant. She was like, "Well, I drank alcohol once but it wasn't to spite my parents, and when I told my mom, she didn't care, she just thought it was funny. Is that rebellion?" So I think we can conclude that the answer to whether or not my mom was ever rebellious is "no".

Yeah, my family is pretty boring too...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Bethella said:

They showed them visiting early on in the series and I think they showed the funeral for Michelle's father. But not much else has been shown, so we don't know much about the contact with Michelle's family.

Yes, in 17 Kids and Counting there was an episode with them visiting with Michelle's family. That was it. In the earlier specials, Michelle's oldest sister(who was pregnant when their mom was pregnant with Michelle) was filmed celebrating Michelle's birthday. Otherwise, they mentioned visiting the family while on one of their road trips. But no, they didn't show her dad's funeral. Josie was in the hospital at the time, and they showed Jimbob telling the kids that grandpa had died. I always figured they didn't want to be on camera anymore. One sister didn't want to tell the interviewers about grandpa's condition, and they showed a niece telling. So maybe they decided they needed to draw the line here, for their own privacy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Chocolatedefrauded she must have been pretty intense to be remembered with serious fear over a hundred years after the fact :pb_lol: I wish I could have met her (although gods know what she would have made of me) - family lore says that Great Grandmother and her mother were the only midwives in the area who dared walk out through the forest to help women after dark, (the people in the community were scared of something they called Drindles/Grendels - ? Spelling/pronounciation ? - which they thought would drive mad or kill anyone going through the woods at night - I can't find exact reference to anything called Drindels/Grendels in the mythology, but they seem to line up with something known as Vatte - evil little creatures that live under ground and come out at night, so maybe a dialect or a regional term). Apparently, my mother asked her about her night time travels, and Great Grandmother just laughed and told my mother that she'd never met anything in the woods that couldn't be dealt with by either a staff or an axe, and she carried both. We have her carved walking staff over the fireplace in my mother's house. It's over 8' long and heavy. I imagine it could have whopped Grendels and/or any other miscreants pretty good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, Coy Koi said:

Haha. I once asked my mom, "Didn't you EVER get into trouble as a teenager?" and after some thought, she said she did get in trouble a few times for leaving crumbs on the counter. I think I've mentioned that here before. I then later laughed at her about that story and she insisted that it was a pretty big deal, and she got yanked out of bed in the middle of the night to clean it up! This was the same conversation when we were talking about "teenage rebellion" and trying to figure out if she'd ever actually done anything rebellious, and she seriously asked me what rebellion even meant. She was like, "Well, I drank alcohol once but it wasn't to spite my parents, and when I told my mom, she didn't care, she just thought it was funny. Is that rebellion?" So I think we can conclude that the answer to whether or not my mom was ever rebellious is "no".

Yeah, my family is pretty boring too...

Oh my gosh. My kids are like your mom. They never went through the terrible two's or teenage rebellion, unless you count a large bowl of ice cream when I said medium. They were/are super easy kids. Since I had my kids before my friends and before my sister, they have since told me that my kids gave them a totally wrong idea about what having kids was like. In divorce court, the mediator asked us separately what happens when the kids get in trouble. I said I count to three, and the kids said, "Mom counts to two." Lol - I've never made it to three. Good thing because I never had a plan for what would happen on three.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Kittikatz said:

@Chocolatedefrauded she must have been pretty intense to be remembered with serious fear over a hundred years after the fact :pb_lol: I wish I could have met her (although gods know what she would have made of me) - family lore says that Great Grandmother and her mother were the only midwives in the area who dared walk out through the forest to help women after dark, (the people in the community were scared of something they called Drindles/Grendels - ? Spelling/pronounciation ? - which they thought would drive mad or kill anyone going through the woods at night - I can't find exact reference to anything called Drindels/Grendels in the mythology, but they seem to line up with something known as Vatte - evil little creatures that live under ground and come out at night, so maybe a dialect or a regional term). Apparently, my mother asked her about her night time travels, and Great Grandmother just laughed and told my mother that she'd never met anything in the woods that couldn't be dealt with by either a staff or an axe, and she carried both. We have her carved walking staff over the fireplace in my mother's house. It's over 8' long and heavy. I imagine it could have whopped Grendels and/or any other miscreants pretty good.

Grendel is actually mentioned in the Saga of Beowulf. Grendel is one of the three antagonists of the story. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grendel

Beowulf is a Anglo-Saxon/Old English poem, so maybe not relevant to your family's culture.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Million Children For Jesus said:

Oh my gosh. My kids are like your mom. They never went through the terrible two's or teenage rebellion, unless you count a large bowl of ice cream when I said medium. They were/are super easy kids. Since I had my kids before my friends and before my sister, they have since told me that my kids gave them a totally wrong idea about what having kids was like. In divorce court, the mediator asked us separately what happens when the kids get in trouble. I said I count to three, and the kids said, "Mom counts to two." Lol - I've never made it to three. Good thing because I never had a plan for what would happen on three.

Now that is the kind of kids my mom expected, and did not get! All three of us were difficult teenagers in some way or another (a LOT of it could have been avoided if not for my mom's unrealistic expectations though). My baby sister is 10.5 years younger than me though and was very compliant as a kid. My mom was sure that she was going to be the one to never cause trouble and would get so mad when I expressed a different opinion. I could always see the rebel streak in her. Well...let's just say that at 15 or 16 she ended up in one of those troubled teens wilderness camps. (A decade or so later, she's doing great, but not thanks to the camp, which has since been shut down after one of their campers died.)

PS - My mom always told us she would count to "one". :pb_lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, luxfilia said:

From what has been shown on TV, Josh's household has a drastically different diet than his married sisters' (and, in that there is more available quantity-wise, it also differs from how he was raised). Josh was shown eating copious amounts of processed food, sweets, sausage, bacon, gravy, store-bought biscuits, and so on. I'm sure they played it up for the show, but he certainly seemed to be enjoying himself. The married sisters, on the other hand, have been shown baking sweet potatoes, making fruit and greens smoothies, and generally attempting to do  more "whole" foods, rather than the store-bought kind of stuff on which they were raised. We hate on their recipes and techniques, but it's undeniable that they try to surround themselves with food that isn't as processed as how they grew up.

Personally, I had a lot of siblings and remember a lot of nights than, even though my mom cooked a big meal, I didn't get all I wanted to or had to sneak. I still love to eat for reasons that aren't always to do with hunger, and you can tell how I was raised vs. how my husband was and how our relationships with food differ, but I keep tons of HEALTHY (and vegan) stuff around so that I don't feel that guilty even if I do binge. I maintain a healthy weight, blood pressure, and so on, even eating more calories than many people I know.  Josh needs healthier options, to start with. NOTHING I have seen him put in his body is something his body actually needs in order to function well. 

If I ate any of the stuff that Josh has been shown to eat, I would be a MESS hormonally, weight-wise, stamina-wise, digestion-wise, and so on.

Remember that doughnut/hamburger thing he stuffed in his slimy face when he and Anna were at some fair? Now i love cheeseburgers and bacon, but ugh.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

Remember that doughnut/hamburger thing he stuffed in his slimy face when he and Anna were at some fair? Now i love cheeseburgers and bacon, but ugh.

Exactly! Well, I stick to pretty specific way of eating  these days for health purposes, but I don't care when people like to indulge in treats. For Josh, though, it seems he ONLY eats "treats." I do think it's a huge health risk to have next to nothing redeemable at all in one's diet. I've seen it too often in my own family. I do feel Josh needs so many different kinds of help, including nutritional. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

56 minutes ago, BullyJBG said:

Yes, in 17 Kids and Counting there was an episode with them visiting with Michelle's family. That was it. In the earlier specials, Michelle's oldest sister(who was pregnant when their mom was pregnant with Michelle) was filmed celebrating Michelle's birthday. Otherwise, they mentioned visiting the family while on one of their road trips. But no, they didn't show her dad's funeral. Josie was in the hospital at the time, and they showed Jimbob telling the kids that grandpa had died. I always figured they didn't want to be on camera anymore. One sister didn't want to tell the interviewers about grandpa's condition, and they showed a niece telling. So maybe they decided they needed to draw the line here, for their own privacy.

I'm glad Michelle's family stood up to TLC and maintained their privacy.

All I remember about Mr. Ruark's death was Jim Bob and the kids driving the bus to the funeral while Michelle stayed with Josie until the last minute and flew in and out in a day. I don't know if that information came from the show, news reports or social media.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, Coy Koi said:

a LOT of it could have been avoided if not for my mom's unrealistic expectations though).

she ended up in one of those troubled teens wilderness camps. (A decade or so later, she's doing great, but not thanks to the camp, which has since been shut down after one of their campers died.)

(Snipped)

I had my kids young, so I didn't have time to form expectations. My friends and I basically sat the baby down and then watched to see what happened, like she was a Gremlin or something. Then we cheered whenever she did anything. Same thing with the next one. It was like that scene in Modern Family when Hailey and Dylan babysat and said, "Kids are fun... And easy." 

Re: camp. That's terrible. What is also terrible is that I always thought those camps looked fun. I was sad that I was a goodie-goodie and not invited. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@VelociRapture thanks for the information - my Great Grandmother came from Northern Norway, so it seems unlikely that Beowulf would have penetrated there - also the Grendel from Beowulf seems like a different sort of creature from what my mother was told of. That said, everything passed on through that branch of my mother's family was verbal, and given the translation process through two languages, and the length of the generations in that family (Great Grandmother would have been born in the late 1860s, the bar incident happened around 1915, and my mother didn't sit down and talk to her Grandmother about family history until the 1950's), so it's quite possible that untranslatable words/concepts got morphed or misunderstood.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Million Children For Jesus said:

I had my kids young, so I didn't have time to form expectations. My friends and I basically sat the baby down and then watched to see what happened, like she was a Gremlin or something. Then we cheered whenever she did anything. Same thing with the next one. It was like that scene in Modern Family when Hailey and Dylan babysat and said, "Kids are fun... And easy." 

Re: camp. That's terrible. What is also terrible is that I always thought those camps looked fun. I was sad that I was a goodie-goodie and not invited. 

I had my daughter young too (hence how I was a difficult teen...haha) but she's not so easy! Whenever I complain to my mom about my daughter giving me trouble in ways that I never gave HER trouble as a teen, she's just like, "Yeah, I know how you feel." Touche...

Yeah, the camp wasn't fun. It wasn't like one of those "boot camp" type things where they scream at you or anything, but the conditions were very rough, and the kids were not prepared. They spent all their time hiking in the mountains in the winter. My poor sister got diarrhea and had accidents in her sleeping bag a couple times (I guess due to the stress and diet, as this was certainly not a problem she'd ever had before) and wasn't provided with supplies to properly clean up. Of course that's nothing compared to the teen who died.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Coy Koi those camps sound terrifying. I'm glad your sister survived. I knew of a couple of kids who had similar experiences, and it makes me sick that so many of those kind of places are still around, and how easy it is for parents to stick so called 'troubled teens' into unregulated environments like that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My mother threatened me too many time with the scare tactic of having a kid just like me. Hence I never had any kids.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Coconut Flan locked this topic

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.



×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.